An estimated 1 in 10 residents of the town of Amatrice have died, its mayor says. ‘Our heart is broken, but it will be resurrected’
Up to 200 people are feared dead in the small town of Amatrice alone following Wednesday’s earthquake, its mayor has said.
Sergio Pirozzi told state broadcaster Rai that at least 190 are already confirmed dead in the town, with around 40 more still missing.
Old listings for Amatrice put the town’s population at 1,046, though CNN’s estimate of 2,000 seems closer to the truth. That would mean approximately one in 10 residents were killed in the quake.
Pirozzi said there were sure to be many of his friends among the dead, given the areas of the town which suffered the most damage.
“Our heart is broken, but it will be resurrected,” he said.
While people continue to be pulled from the rubble in other parts of the region today, there has been no such luck in Amatrice. “Is there any more news on people who could still pull through? Since last night, no,” he said.
He says his widely-reported quotes about the town not being there any more probably helped get them aid faster. In fact, around 50 per cent of the town was completely destroyed – but Pirozzi explains to Rai what he meant by the phrase.
“I left my home and the ancient gate to the town of Amatrice, which is from 1400, wasn’t there any more. When the gate falls, the slate is wiped clean.
We are still finding survivors
Flavio Ronzi, the secretary-general of the Italian Red Cross, says there is still hope to find people alive.
“We are still finding some survivors because there is still some time, we can still find someone alive but of course hour by hour it’s going to be more difficult and with less possibilities,” he told the BBC.
Right now, the focus continues to be on finding survivors in the rubble, and mourning those who have died.
Hope has not yet been completely lost that more will be pulled alive from the debris. Locals hark back to the huge earthquake that hit L’Aquila in 2009 not so far away from the current affected region. There, some survived up to 72 hours under the wreckage of homes before they were freed.
But among the wider Italian public, questions are already being asked about whether more could have been done to avert the worst impacts of Wednesday’s 6.2-magnitude quake.
“The Apennine mountains in central Italy have the highest seismic hazard in Western Europe and earthquakes of this magnitude are common,” noted Richard Walters, a lecturer in Earth sciences at Durham University in the UK.
Modern buildings in the region are required by law to be built to high anti-seismic standards, given the number of earthquakes the area suffers.
Yet in Amatrice, while the local hospital was rendered “unusable” by the quake, the historic 16th-century clock tower stood as if untouched.
Serious concerns are also being raised over the amount of specialised equipment available to rescuers.
And despite a massive rescue and relief effort — with army, Alpine crews, carabineri, firefighters, Red Cross crews and volunteers, it wasn’t enough: A few miles north of Amatrice, in Illica, residents complained that rescue workers were slow to arrive and that loved ones were trapped.
“We are waiting for the military,” said Alessandra Cappellanti. “There is a base in Ascoli, one in Rieti, and in L’Aquila. And we have not seen a single soldier. We pay! It’s disgusting!”
As to the effort to rebuild, the mayor of Accumoli, Stefano Petrucci, said he feared for the future of the town.
“I hope they don’t forget us,” he told Sky TG24.
Italy’s prime minister, Matteo Renzi, will convene his Cabinet today to decide measures to help the affected communities.
He said late on Wednesday: “Today is a day for tears, tomorrow we can talk of reconstruction.”
2 hours ago
The public has also rallied behind the victims by attempting to raise money in the most Italian way possible – cooking and eating pasta.
An initiative was launched just hours after the extent of the damage from the earthquake became clearly, whereby participating restaurants would donate €2 to the crisis response for every “spaghetti all’Amatriciana” sold.
The dish is famous nationwide, and originates from Amatrice, one of the towns worst hit by Wednesday’s quake. It is a sauce consisting of cured pork cheek (guanciale), pecorino cheese and tomatoes.
The town was supposed to be celebrating the dish this weekend at its 50th annual “sagra”, or local food festival.
The initiative to donate to the cause, whereby €1 each is given by the customer and by the restaurant, has reportedly been taken up all over the country. Here is a poster promoting it, with a pun on the “ama” of “Amatriciana”. Ama is the Italian for “loves”.
The initiative has not just been limited to pasta. One pizzeria has created the “Amatriciana pizza”, presumably based on similar ingredients, and says it will donate 70% of proceeds to the earthquake victims.
People across Italy have rallied round the victims of the earthquake in a number of ways in the past 24 hours.
Possibly most immediately practical has been a huge drive to give blood, with queues reported at donation centres both near and far.
This was the scene inside a hospital in the nearby city of Rieti, Lazio.
And these images are from clinics in Rome, where queues extended out into the street. One is a tweet from the region of Lazio, saying “grazie” to their Roman counterparts.
Overnight, two powerful aftershocks measuring magnitudes 4.7 and 4.1 interrupted rescue efforts among the debris.
Around 26 hours after the initial earthquake, residents in the region were once again jolted awake by a strong aftershock with an epicentre around 7km east of Norcia, Umbria.
The US Geological Survey put its magnitude at 4.7, with a relatively shallow depth of 10km (6 miles), at around 5.40am.
Earlier, a little after midnight, a weaker 4.1-magnitude aftershock hit around 8 miles further south. But it was at an even shallower depth, of about 7.3km.
Italy sits on two fault lines, making it one of the most seismically active countries in Europe.
Impossible to know how many are missing
The head of Italy’s civil protection agency has given a sense of the chaos on the ground in the earthquake-hit region, as authorities try to work out how many people are still to be accounted for.
According to Italian news outlet Quotidiano.net, he said: “It is impossible to establish the number of those missing, without a list of names to begin with.”
The outlet says the latest figures are that 264 people are wounded in hospital.
At first, there is just a faint sound. “You can hear something under here. Quiet, quiet,” says one of the Italian rescue workers, shifting aside dirt and debris from the earthquake more than 17 hours earlier with his bare hands.
Premier Matteo Renzi visited the zone Wednesday, greeted rescue teams and survivors, and pledged that “No family, no city, no hamlet will be left behind.” Italy’s civil protection agency reported the death toll had risen to 247 early Thursday; at least 368 others were injured.
Worst affected were the tiny towns of Amatrice and Accumoli near Rieti, 100 kilometers (60 miles) northeast of Rome, and Pescara del Tronto, 25 kilometers further east. Italy’s civil protection agency set up tent cities around each hamlet to accommodate the thousands of homeless. In Amatrice, the elderly and children spent the night inside a local sports facility.
Italy’s health minister, Beatrice Lorenzin, visiting the devastated area, said many of the victims were children: The quake zone is a popular spot for Romans with second homes, and the population swells in August when most Italians take their summer holiday before school resumes.
The medieval center of Amatrice was devastated, with rescue crews digging by hand to get to trapped residents.
The birthplace of the famed spaghetti all’ amatriciana bacon and tomato sauce, the city was full for this weekend’s planned festival honoring its native dish. Guests filled its top Hotel Roma, famed for its amatriciana, where five bodies were pulled from the rubble before the operation was suspended when conditions became too dangerous late Wednesday. Among those killed was an 11-year-old boy who had initially shown signs of life.
There were wails, too, when bodies emerged.
“Unfortunately, 90 percent we pull out are dead, but some make it, that’s why we are here,” said Christian Bianchetti, a volunteer from Rieti who was working in devastated Amatrice where flood lights were set up so the rescue could continue through the night.
Dozens of people were pulled out alive by rescue teams and volunteers that poured in from around Italy.
In the evening, about 17 hours after the quake struck, firefighters pulled a 10-year-old girl alive from the rubble in Pescara del Tronto.
“You can hear something under here. Quiet, quiet,” one rescue worker said, before soon urging her on: “Come on, Giulia, come on, Giulia.”
Cheers broke out when she was pulled out.
Rescue crews using bulldozers and their bare hands raced to dig out survivors Thursday from a strong earthquake that reduced three central Italian towns to rubble. The death toll rose to 247, but the number of dead and missing was uncertain given the thousands of vacationers in the area for summer’s final days.
Residents wakened before dawn by the temblor emerged from their crumbled homes to find what they described as apocalyptic scenes “like Dante’s Inferno,” with entire blocks of buildings turned into piles of sand and rock, thick dust choking the air and a putrid smell of gas.
“The town isn’t here anymore,” said Sergio Pirozzi, the mayor of the hardest-hit town, Amatrice. “I believe the toll will rise.”
The magnitude 6.2 quake struck at 3:36 a.m. on Wednesday and was felt across a broad swath of central Italy, including Rome, where residents woke to a long swaying followed by aftershocks. The temblor shook the Lazio region and Umbria and Le Marche on the Adriatic coast, a highly seismic area that has witnessed major quakes in the past and continued to shake early Thursday with aftershocks.
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