Rescue crews raced against time Thursday looking for survivors from the natural disaster that leveled three towns in central Italy, but the death toll rose to 247 and Italy once again anguished over trying to secure its medieval communities built on seismic lands.
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Aid workers and local residents have been combing through the rubble in search of survivors.
Italy’s quake institute, INGV, said the epicenter was near Accumoli and Amatrice, which lie between the larger towns of Ascoli Piceno to the northeast and Rieti to the southwest. One, around an hour later, was recorded as magnitude 5.5 by the US Geological Survey.
Fabio Curcio, head of Italy’s Civil Protection Department, called it a “serious earthquake” that resulted in “wounded” and “serious damage”, ANSA reported. At least 10 people died in the Marche region villages of Arquata and Pescara del Tronto.
Prime Minister Matteo Renzi had earlier said at least 120 people were killed in the quake.
“This is not a final toll… today is a day for tears”.
The quake, which registered between 6.0 and 6.2, was strong enough to be felt in Bologna to the north and Naples to the south, each more than 220 km from the epicenter.
Complicating matters was that the area is a popular vacation spot in summer, with populations swelling, making the number of people in the area at the time hard to estimate. Numerous victims were from Rome.
The devastation harked back to the 2009 quake that killed more than 300 people in and around L’Aquila, about 90 kilometres (55 miles) south of the latest quake.
“There’s no sound from them”, he said.
But spokesman Josh Earnest said due to Italy’s experience in responding to major quakes “it is not clear to me at this point that any of those offers have been taken up. They managed to pull my sister’s children out, they’re in hospital now”, he added, wringing his hands in anguish. “Two parents and two children”, Mayor Stefano Petrucci told RAI television. Tomorrow we can talk of reconstruction.
Deadly earthquakes have struck Italy in recent years.
The civil protection agency said it was trying to determine how many people were staying in the Hotel Roma, Amatrice’s best-known accommodation that mayor Sergio Pirozzi said had collapsed.
Most of the buildings along the two central streets collapsed with the quake, burying entire families who had come to spend their vacation in the area.
Amatrice is a hilltop beauty spot famed as the home of amatriciana, one of Italy’s favourite pasta sauces, and is a popular destination for Romans seeking cool mountain air at the height of the summer. The magnitude 6 quake struck at 3:36 a.m. (0136 GMT) and was felt across a broad swath of central It.
Three minutes later the clock on the village’s 13th-century tower stopped.
It measured 6.0 according to Italian monitors, who put the depth at only four km.
“At that shallowness and magnitude of 6.2, we’re going to expect lots of aftershocks for next several hours and maybe the next several days”.
Italy is vulnerable to earthquakes.
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Premier Matteo Renzi, visiting the quake-affected zone Wednesday, promised to rebuild “and guarantee a reconstruction that will allow residents to live in these communities, to relaunch these handsome towns that have a wonderful past that will never end”.
