Emma Tucker, the deputy editor of The Times of London, was one of the thousands of people on vacation in the region struck by the quake. Officials expect the death toll to rise as crews work to reach homes in more remote hamlets. The hardest-hit towns were Amatrice and Accumoli near Rieti, about 80 miles northeast of Rome. Numerous dead were in Pescara del Tronto, a popular holiday spot where up to ten people were missing. “I don’t know what we’ll do”.
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The mayor of Amatrice near Rieti, Sergio Perozzi, told state-run RAI radio that there were downed buildings in the city center and that the lights had gone out. Abbott says: “Taking a coffee this morning in Tuscania, which was itself extensively damaged by a deadly quake in 1971, the talk was sad, calm, of “fate”, she says.
Accumoli mayor Stefano Petrucci fought back tears as he described the scenes as “a tragedy”.
This aerial view shows the damage in the town of Amatrice, central Italy, on Wednesday, following a powerful quake.
Residents responding to wails muffled by tonnes of bricks and mortar sifted through the rubble with their bare hands before emergency services arrived with earth-moving equipment and sniffer dogs.
“There are broken liquor bottles all over the place”, lamented Gino Petrucci, owner of a bar in nearby Arquata Del Tronto where he was beginning the long cleanup.
A woman is comforted as she walks through rubble on August 24 in Amatrice, Italy. “Now I move away a little bit and you do pee please”.
Entire homes have collapsed and many landmark buildings.
“There is a landslide on one road, a bridge is about to collapse on the other one”, he said, according to the AGI news agency. The U.S. Geological Survey put the magnitude at 6.2 with the epicenter at Norcia, about 105 miles northwest of Rome, and with a relatively shallow depth of six miles.
“It’s all young people here, it’s holiday season, the town festival was to have been held tomorrow (Friday) so lots of people came for that”, said local resident Giancarlo, sitting in the road wearing just his underwear.
The State Department is also asking US citizens in Burma to contact relatives to let them know you’re OK. Several large aftershocks followed. The Rev. Fabio Gammarota told ANSA another three were killed in a separate collapse. “One was a friend of mine”, he said. The USGS said data from previous similar quakes indicate there may be widespread and severe damage.
Pope Francis interrupted his weekly audience in St Peter’s Square to express his shock.
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No damages were reported at the National Institute of Nuclear Physics’s (INFN’s) laboratories in the area in Frascati near Rome and underground at the Gran Sasso Massif near L’Aquila, says Antonella Varaschin, a spokesperson at the INFN headquarters in Rome.
