At least 241 lives were lost when a powerful 6.2-magnitude natural disaster followed by some 460 small aftershocks hit Italy’s central regions, leaving several cities and towns with severe damage or completely reduced to rubble, emergency officials said.
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A CNN crew in Amatrice was filming in front of a house when the structure partially collapsed, and others around it were completely flattened.
The death toll from a devastating natural disaster in central Italy reached at least 241 people on Thursday and could rise further after rescue teams worked through the night to try to find survivors under the rubble of flattened towns.
Love and healing thoughts go out to our friends in Amatrice, Italy, whose attractive, quaint village has been demolished by the quake yesterday.
A broken crucifix hangs inside the damaged church of Santa Maria della Misericordia in Accumoli, central Italy, Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2016, after a magnitude 6 quake struck at 3:36 a.m. (0136 GMT) and was felt across a broad swath of central Italy, including Rome where residents of the capital felt a long swaying followed by aftershocks.
The hardest-hit places have proved to be the hardest to access; they’re smaller and older, and numerous roads to get in were affected by the quake.
Renzi said the Cabinet would meet on Thursday to decide measures to help the affected communities.
In Pescara del Tronto, which was virtually razed by the quake, there only four permanently resident families but there could have been up to 300 people there on Wednesday.
“Myanmar was also affected by an quake with historical sites damaged and lives lost”.
Dawn broke over the rolling hills of central Lazio and Le Marche regions after a night of uninterrupted search efforts.
Emergency services set up tent cities around the quake-devastated towns to accommodate the homeless, housing about 1,200 people overnight. He added that the region is popular with tourists escaping the heat of Rome, with more residents than at other times of the year, and that a single building collapse could raise the toll significantly.
But Giorgia’s survival is sadly an anomaly so far in the massive rescue operation, which involves more than 5,400 rescuers from Italy’s Civil Protection agency, and many more from outside groups.
Sergio Pirozzi, mayor of Amatrice, said: “The town isn’t here any more”.
Within a half hour of the first quake, Father Nivakoff said, the square outside the monastery was filled with people “because it is the safest place in town – around the statue of St. Benedict”.
“Right now we feel awful pain”, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said after touring some of the affected areas.
“People like myself have lost everything, but at the same time the fact that we have survived means we have to move forward one minute at a time”, said Alessandra Cioni, 45, who managed to crawl out of her crumpled house after the quake.
In 2009, following the Abruzzo quake that left more than 300 dead, the Italian-Canadian community across the country raised more than $2-million for a new health facility in the region. There have been more than 460 aftershocks. The U.S. Geological Survey put the magnitude at 6.2.
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No victims were reported there, but the quakes damaged buildings, according to RaiNews24.
