Italian officials have said that they do not believe the country will need to invoke the EU’s Civil Protection Mechanism to call on fellow member states for support and help after more than 240 people died when a powerful natural disaster struck the area around Amatrice in central Italy.
Advertisement
Amatrice normally has a population of around 2,500 but it was packed with visitors when the quake struck as people slept in the early hours of Wednesday.
“The operation continued throughout the night and obviously there will be no let-up until it is absolutely clear that there is no possibility of finding any more people in the ruins”, said Immacolata Postiglione, the head of the Civil Protection agency’s emergency unit.
“Going into detail, around 1,000 men and women from our police forces are involved”, she told the press.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is helping coordinate rescue efforts with authorities, the Italian Council of Ministers said in a statement.
Carlo Cardinali, a local fire official taking part in the search efforts at the hotel, told Sky TG24 that about 10 guests were still missing.
Authorities say they can not put a figure on the number trapped under the rubble, but the death toll is expected to rise.
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. Other fatalities were reported in the nearby towns of Accumoli and Arquata del Tronto.
The hardest-hit places have proved to most difficult to access – they’re smaller and older, and numerous roads to get in were affected by the quake. The 6.2 magnitude quake leveled most of three cities.
The aftershock caused one building to partially collapse, sending up plumes of smoke and panic in Amatrice.
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.
“We had one of the most handsome places in Italy and now we have nothing”, said Amatrice Mayor Sergio Pirozzi, in an interview.
Worst affected by the quake were the tiny towns of Amatrice and Accumoli near Rieti, 60 miles (100km) north-east of Rome, and Pescara del Tronto, 15 miles (25km) further east.
“The objective is to rebuild and start again”, he said, vowing lessons would be learned from L’Aquila, which still bears huge scars from the 2009 quake that left 300 people dead.
Advertisement
Cheers broke out when she was pulled out.
