Aid workers and rescuers are still searching for those who may be lost in the debris – on late Wednesday, a firefighter announced that he’d pulled an 8-year-old girl out alive from the rubble – and Amatrice residents will not be allowed to sleep in the town on Wednesday night.
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Shaking is more intense from quakes that hit close to the surface like setting off “a bomb directly under a city”, said Susan Hough, a USGS seismologist.
The death toll in the 2009 quake was far lower, but witnesses described the damage as devastating.
While deep quakes may be less damaging, they’re usually more widely felt.
In recent quakes, some of these more modern buildings have been the deadliest: the university dormitory that collapsed in the 2009 L’Aquila quake, killing 11 students; the elementary school that crumbled in San Giuliano di Puglia in 2002, killing 26 children – the town’s entire first-grade class.
A devastating natural disaster hit central Italy on Wednesday, killing at least 120 people and displacing more than 1,000.
The damage in Amatrice was so severe that the mayor, Sergio Pirozzi, told CNN that the “town isn’t here anymore”.
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.
But an official with Italy’s civil protection agency, Luigi d’Angelo, told Sky TG24 that about 35 people had been staying at the hotel, and most had managed to get out. He said he instantly knew this quake was far, far worse than the “little movements” locals are used to in this quake-prone belt straddling Italy’s rocky Apennines mountains. Aided by sniffer dogs and audio equipment, firefighters and rescue crews using their bare hands pulled chunks of cement, rock and metal apart from mounds of rubble where homes once stood searching for signs of life. The quake had a shallow depth of between four and 10 kilometers, the agencies said. “Quiet, quiet”, one rescue worker said, before soon urging her on: “Come on, Giulia, come on, Giulia”.
Many people were caught off guard as the quake struck in the middle of the night. “We are living this huge tragedy”, said a tearful Rev. Savino D’Amelio, a parish priest in Amatrice.
Aerial photographs showed whole areas of Amatrice, a year ago voted one of Italy’s most attractive historic towns, flattened by the quake.
“There are broken liquor bottles all over the place”, said Gino Petrucci, owner of a bar in nearby Arquata Del Tronto where he was beginning the long cleanup. “Now I move away a little bit and you do pee, please”.
Search and rescue teams search for missing people amid the rubble of collapsed buildings in Amatrice, Italy, Aug. 24, 2016.more +.
President Barack Obama, speaking by telephone to Italian President Sergio Mattarella, said the US sent its thoughts and prayers to the quake victims and saluted the “quick action” by first responders, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.
Pope Francis skipped his traditional catechism for his Wednesday general audience and instead invited the thousands of pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square to recite the rosary with him.
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Winfield reported from Rome.
