As powerful aftershocks closed winding mountain roads and made life unsafe for more than 4,000 professionals and volunteers engaged in the rescue effort, survivors voiced dazed bewilderment over the scale of the disaster that has struck their sleepy communities.
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(AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia). A auto with a British number plate is parked outside a house where British citizens Marcos Burnett and Will and Maria Henniker-Gotley died following an natural disaster in Sommati, near Amatrice, central Italy, Friday, Aug. 26, 201. “We have to make sure Amatrice does not become isolated, or risk further help being unable to get through”.
Some 2,100 people who spent the night in hastily-erected tented villages were shaken by a 4.8 magnitude aftershock just after 6:00 am (0400 GMT) on Friday morning. The U.S. Geological Service said it had a magnitude of 4.7, while the Italian geophysics institute measured it at 4.8.
It left one key access bridge to Amatrice unusable, and damaged another one.
Even before the bridges were shut down Friday, roads have been choked with heavy traffic as emergency vehicles bring scores of rescue crews up to town and dump trucks carry tons of concrete, rocks and metal back out the single-lane roads.
Relatives of some of the dead from Italy’s quake are slowly streaming into an airport hangar in the regional capital of Rieti where their loved ones have been transported.
Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has pledged to rebuild the houses shattered by the quake and renew efforts to bolster Italy’s flimsy defences against earthquakes.
The Italian government has decreed that a state funeral will be held Saturday for some of the victims of the quake.
The first funerals for victims of the devastating natural disaster that hit central Italy this week were held Friday as the country prepared for an emotionally charged day of mourning. One of Pope Francis’ top advisers celebrated a funeral Mass for seven other victims south of Rome.
It was more bad news for rescuers, who have been desperately combing through mountains of rubble for a second day.
Hopes of finding more survivors faded on Friday three days after the powerful quake hit central Italy, with the death toll rising to 267. But he conceded: “Certainly, it will be very unlikely”.
By Friday, most of the outlying communities were quiet and empty, buildings lying in crumpled mounds, the innards of private homes exposed to the skies and belongings scattered in the debris. “We need the pace of a marathon runner”, he said.
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“They were lovely. They were a lovely family”. The mayor estimates at least 15 more people remain unaccounted for there. That was the strategy used in L’Aquila in nearby Abruzzo, where the historic centre was demolished in the 2009 quake and modern housing built miles away for residents.
