Now seven years old, he has been working with rescue teams since he was a puppy, helping find people trapped under collapsed buildings.
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He has promised to rebuild the shattered homes and said he would also renew efforts to bolster Italy’s flimsy defences against earthquakes that regularly batter the country.
A volunteer takes some rest in a makeshift camp set up inside a gymnasium following an natural disaster, in Amatrice, central Italy, Thursday, Aug. 25, 2016.
Giorgia’s rescue has been one of the few stories of hope since the 6.2-magnitude quake struck Wednesday, killing at least 267 people and injuring 400 others.
In the devastated town of Amatrice, reduced to rubble and ruins by the magnitude-6.2 natural disaster, an aftershock of magnitude 4.7 struck Friday morning, the US Geological Survey said.
“We hope to God it works because otherwise, with the damaged stretch of road, we are without any connection” to the outside world, he said.
Over 2,000 people who spent the night in hastily-erected tented villages were shaken by a 4.8 magnitude aftershock just after 6.00am (0400 GMT) yesterday morning.
Many bodies were brought to a makeshift morgue in an aircraft hangar in the city of Rieti, where auhtorities and relatives are identifying them.
A state of emergency was declared on Friday in affected areas and 50 million euros (about $55 million) in funds pledged for rebuilding, the BBC reported. In addition, the government declared a day of national mourning for Saturday, with flags flying at half-staff on all public offices.
The Italian government has decreed that a state funeral will be held Saturday for some of the victims of the natural disaster. Later Friday, one of Pope Francis’ top advisers is to celebrate a funeral Mass for seven other victims south of Rome.
Hopes of finding more survivors from Italy’s powerful quake faded on Friday, with the death toll rising to 278 and the rescue operation in some of the stricken areas called off.
Civil protection operations chief Immacolata Postiglione still insisted Friday that the rescue effort hadn’t yet switched to a recovery mission. “They believe it’s about 72 hours those people would be able to survive”.
On the ground, there was still determination to account for all missing, even though the number of people still unaccounted for is uncertain given the large number of visitors to the area for the final days of summer.
But, he added, “it will be very unlikely”.
The situation remains more uncertain in the Amatrice area, where the vast majority of the quake victims have come from. To date 49 of the dead have come from the tiny town and its nearby hamlet Pescara del Tronto.
Renzi and President Sergio Mattarella will today attend a funeral service in the city of Ascoli-Piceno for some of the 46 people who died in the mountain villages of Arquata del Tronto and Pescara del Tronto.
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Across the area, thousands have been forced to abandon their homes, either because they were destroyed or they were determined to be too unsafe.
