“So we want to continue”.
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The body of his brother Andrea was found dead in the collapsed building.
His distraught aunt, Maria Rita, told local TV: “I saw him and CPR was useless”. “We will of course work together with Italy – if they ask for help, the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency will be ready”, said the Social Democrat leader.
The rescuers, which include foreign crews, are also working through aftershocks – even one as powerful as magnitude 5.5. “Every 7 or 8 years there’s been an quake in this area but I’ve never seen one so long and ugly”, said a Pescara del Tronto resident.
A firefighter clawed at the debris, trying to get to a young girl.
“Come on… Come on”.
One rescuer could be heard saying: ‘You can hear something under here. “She’s alive!” a witness joyously cries.
In Saletta, a town of just 20 homes less than a mile from the quake’s epicenter, an eerie quiet has taken over. He also said that he saw “at least 30 killed in this city alone”. And we have not seen a single soldier.
But in many other cases, wails of grief rang out when bodies emerged.
Nadeau and her crew narrowly escaped injury when a home collapsed behind her in Saletta as she did a Facebook Live session Wednesday.
Some 264 of the wounded have been hospitalized. “We don’t know how much longer we will need to stay here”.
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.
Italy is vulnerable to earthquakes and the 2009 tremor in L’Aquila led to lengthy recriminations over lax building controls and the failure of authorities to warn residents that a quake could be imminent.
“Right now we feel bad pain”, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said after touring some of the affected areas. “After each tragedy we say we will act but then the weeks go by and nothing happens”.
Addressing the nation Wednesday, Renzi vowed to spare no effort in the critical window following the quake when lives could still be saved.
“In hard times, Italy knows what to do”, he said.
In recent Italian quakes, some modern buildings – many of them public institutions – have been the deadliest.
It was a brief moment of joy on a day in which at least 247 people were killed in the region following a 6.2-magnitude quake at 3.30am yesterday. The natural disaster Wednesday struck an area close to the 2009 quake.
Rescue workers try to save the girl in Pescara del Tronto.
The first quake measured 6.2, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
“Half the village has disappeared”, said Amatrice mayor Sergio Pirozzi, surveying a town centre that looked as if had been subjected to a bombing raid.
The devastation harked back to the 2009 quake that killed more than 300 people in and around L’Aquila, about 90 kilometers (55 miles) south of the latest quake.
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One area of focus was the Hotel Roma in Amatrice, famous for the Amatriciana bacon and tomato pasta sauce which brings food lovers to the medieval hilltop town each August for its food festival.
