The death toll from a devastating natural disaster that rocked central Italy on Wednesday morning has reached 38 by the middle of the day, according to local media reports citing official figures of the country’s civil protection service. Officials warn that the death toll will likely continue to rise as rescue efforts move forward.
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“A lot of the officials are lamenting that these are tiny towns but their populations swell in the summer, specifically because they are very sought-after vacation getaways”, Associated Press reporter Nicole Winfield is quoted as saying by NPR.
According to CBS News, the mayor of Amatrice says the quake has caused massive damage to the town, adding it “isn’t here anymore”. At least 14 dead and the toll keeps rising.
The magnitude 6 quake struck at 3:36 a.m. (0136 GMT) and was felt across a broad swath of central Italy, including Rome, where residents felt a long swaying followed by aftershocks.
The temblor was strongly felt across the Lazio region and in Rome, the capital of the country.
Premier Matteo Renzi’s office tweeted that heavy equipment was on its way. The center of Amatrice was devastated, with entire palazzos razed to the ground. Amatrice, birthplace of the famed spaghetti all’amatriciana bacon-tomato pasta sauce, is made up of 69 hamlets that rescue teams were working to reach.
The deputy editor of the British newspaper, The Times, who was in the area at the time, told the BBC that the quake lasted about 20 seconds followed by an aftershock about 20 minutes later which was easily as strong.
” ‘The whole ceiling fell but did not hit me, ‘ marveled resident Maria Gianni”. ‘I just managed to put a pillow on my head and I wasn’t hit luckily, just slightly injured my leg’. “I don’t know what we’ll do”. Two boys aged four and seven were pulled alive from the rubble of the house they had been staying in with their grandmother, Ansa news agency reported.
But just a few kilometers to the north, in Illica, the response was slower as residents anxiously waited for loved ones to be extracted from the rubble.
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that “if it is wanted, we are of course ready to provide support”. “People crying for help, help”. Rescue workers took to the air in helicopters to assess the damage at dawn.
The last major natural disaster to hit the country struck the central city of L’Aquila in 2009, killing more than 300 people.
Now a video shows a terrified woman being rescued from debris, bricks and mortar by teams of emergency workers trying to free those trapped below the wreckage. “We are living this huge tragedy”, said a tearful Rev. Savino D’Amelio, a parish priest in Amatrice.
The first two confirmed victims were an elderly couple whose home collapsed in Pescara del Tronto in the Marche region, east of the epicentre, according to national broadcaster Rai. Towns that are believed to have been badly affected are Accumoli, Amatrice, Posta and Arquata del Tronto, fire department spokesman Luca Cari told the news agency.
The US Geological Survey, which measured the quake at 6.2 magnitude, said it struck near the Umbrian city of Norcia, while Italy’s natural disaster institute INGV registered it at 6.0 and put the epicentre further south, closer to Accumoli and Amatrice.
Italian authorities say a magnitude-6 quake in the central part of the country has killed at least 38 people.
The mayor of Accumoli, Stefano Petrucci, told state-run RaiNews24 at least six people had died there, including a family of four, and two others.
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In Amatrice, the Rev. Fabio Gammarota, priest of a nearby parish, said he had blessed seven bodies extracted so far.
