Rescue crews rattled by aftershocks dug through crumbled homes Thursday looking for natural disaster survivors as donations began pouring into the area and Italy again anguished over its failure to protect ancient towns and modern cities from the country’s highly seismic terrain.
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Meanwhile, civil protection officials have revised the death toll from Wednesday’s 6.2-magnitude quake to 267, mainly in the hardest hit towns of Amatrice, Arqueta and Accumoli, which are largely ruined.
While Renzi hailed the fact that 215 people had been rescued after the quake, authorities reported a steadily rising death toll that had hit 267 by Friday morning.
Now some food lovers hope that they can at least harness the symbol of the devastated town that lost the most for a good cause.
The mayor estimates at least 15 more people remain unaccounted for there and Romania says at least 21 of its citizens are still missing in the quake zone.
At least eight foreigners were among the dead, according to media reports and updates from foreign ministries.
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.
In 2015, an estimated 1.3 million Romanians were living in Italy. Amatrice was among the hardest-hit areas. One of Pope Francis’ top advisers celebrated a funeral Mass for seven other victims south of Rome.
A state funeral honoring the quake victims is scheduled for Saturday.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office identified the dead as Marcos Burnett, 14, and Will Henniker-Gotley, 55, and his wife, Maria, 51.
A rescue worker and dog searching for trapped people in Amatrice.
Maria Henniker-Gotley’s employer, Children & the Arts, described her as a dedicated professional who “worked tirelessly” for the charity.
“We will still use thermal devices that can detect the presence of human bodies”, said Checchi.
“Amatrice will have to be razed to the ground”, said mayor Pirozzi, who urged youngsters not to leave the area, saying that would mean the end of their community. Civil protection officials were working to find alternate routes, since the bridge is crucial for emergency crews moving in and out of town. He says “we hope to God it works, because otherwise, with the damaged stretch of road, we are without any connection” to the main roads.
Even before the roads were shut down, traffic into and out of Amatrice was horribly congested with emergency vehicles and dump trucks carrying tons of concrete, rocks and metal down the single-lane roads.
Strong aftershocks continued to strike central Italy on Friday, as rescue crews began to lose hope of finding additional survivors two days after a deadly natural disaster that killed at least 267 people.
The biggest aftershock struck at 6:28 a.m., one of the more than 1,000 that have hit the area since Wednesday’s quake.
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.
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This combination of two satellite images provided by DigitalGlobe shows tents in a field, top, in Amatrice, Italy on Thursday, Aug. 25, 2016 following an quake, left, and April 21, 2014.
