Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi says 120 people have been killed by a devastating quake, the Guardian has reported.
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Dozens more are missing or feared dead from the magnitude-6.2 natural disaster and a series of aftershocks that jolted Umbria, Lazio and Le Marche, three regions some 80 to 100 miles northeast of Rome. “So far, 120 people have lost their lives”, Renzi said in a statement, adding he feared the death toll would rise.
Blasetti says the organization is offering all the support they can to help people contact anyone in the affected regions.
Europe correspondent Sabina Castelfranco said it’s a lovely area, north-east of Rome, that attracts many families and the elderly during this time of year.
The force woke residents of Rome, which is around 100 miles southwest from the epicenter.
“I ask you to be patient in terms of numbers”, Curcio told the affiliate. The hospital in the mountain town also had to be evacuated due to structural damage and was declared non-operational, but none of the patients were reported injured.
CNN’s Frederik Pleitgen is there, where people are digging through the rubble.
“Three quarters of the town is not there anymore”, Amatrice mayor Sergio Pirozzi told state broadcaster RAI.
Members of Calgary’s Italian community are keeping a close eye on their homeland on Wednesday after a massive quake struck the nation overnight.
Other fatalities were reported in the nearby towns of Accumoli and Arquata del Tronto.
The national Civil Protection Department said some survivors would be put up elsewhere in central Italy, while others would be housed in tents that were being dispatched to the area.
The mayor of another hard hit town, Accumoli, described extensive damage and casualties.
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.
“I hope they don’t forget us”, he told Sky TG24. He promised the quake-prone area that “No family, no city, no hamlet will be left behind”. “The entire hotel was shaking”, said Charlotte Smith, coach of Elon University women’s basketball team in North Carolina, who was in Rome with her players when the quake hit. The Rieti provincial chapter of Italian blood donation charity AVIS has put out a call for people to donate blood for the injured. One, around an hour later, was recorded as magnitude 5.5 by the US Geological Survey.
In 2009, the 6.3-magnitude-6.3 that struck L’Aquila led to a trial in which the seismologists in the area were convicted of manslaughter for failing to predict the quake.
It was the most destructive such disaster in Italy since 2009, when a quake killed more than 300 people, left 55,000 homeless and devastated the 13th century city of L’Aquila.
“It was very shocking”, she said.
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He confirmed that landslides covering roads and bridges have complicate access of the Italian authorities.
