Rescue workers are battling against time to find survivors from an quake that struck central Italy before dawn on Wednesday, as the death toll topped 120, according to Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. However, officials warned the final toll might rise further, since dozens were still reported missing late on Wednesday.
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Hundreds of people were to spend a chilly night in hastily-assembled tents with the risk of aftershocks making it far too risky for them to return home.
It was relatively shallow at 4 km below the earth’s surface.
It was followed by more than 50 aftershocks, the strongest a 5.4-magnitude quake. The temblor shook the Lazio region and Umbria and Le Marche on the Adriatic coast.
All three regions are dotted with centuries-old buildings susceptible to earthquakes.
And most of the deaths occurred in and around the villages of Amatrice, Accumoli and Arquata del Tronto.
“I was blown away by what I saw”.
Despite a massive rescue and relief effort – with army, Alpine crews, carabineri, firefighters, Red Cross crews and volunteers, it wasn’t enough: A few miles (kilometers) north of Amatrice, in Illica, residents complained that rescue workers were slow to arrive and that loved ones were trapped.
A family of four were feared dead in the rubble of their house in the nearby town of Accumoli.
As rescue workers carried away the body of the infant, carefully covered by a small blanket, the children’s grandmother blamed God: “He took them all at once”, she wailed. At the Vatican, Pope Francis dispatched part of the Holy See’s tiny firefighting force to help in the rescue. Rescue workers pulled five bodies from the rubble of the hotel but had to halt rescue operations late Wednesday night because it was too unsafe working in the dark.
Israel’s leader says he has offered Italy rescue assistance following the magnitude 6 natural disaster that shook the country. Photos taken from the air by regional firefighters showed the town essentially flattened; Italy requested European Union satellite images of the whole area to get the scope of the damage.
Scores of people are believed unaccounted for, with the presence of the holidaymakers making it hard to tally.
Some of the worst damage was in the town of Amatrice, where several people died and rescue efforts were under way to find survivors.
Sergio Perozzi, the mayor of Amatrice, said, “Roads in and out of town are cut off”. “The aim now is to save as many lives as possible”.
“It’s like a slightly weird dramatic movie scene of crumbling churches with spotlights and people talking in front of all the rubble”, she said on Wednesday evening local time.
The mayor of the quake-hit town of Accumoli says a family of four has been located under the debris of a collapsed building and but there are no signs of life.
President Barack Obama, speaking by telephone to Italian President Sergio Mattarella, said the US sent its thoughts and prayers to the quake victims and saluted the “quick action” by first responders, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.
David Rothery, Professor of Planetary Geosciences at Britain’s Open University, said the shallow depth of Wednesday’s quake had made it more destructive.
Residents of Rome, some 170 kilometers (105 miles) from the registered epicenter, were woken by the quake, which rattled furniture and swayed lights in most of central Italy.
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“It was so strong”. “We must get down to work.to restore hope to this area which has been so badly hit”.
