Death Toll From Italian Quake Rises To 38; Army Mobilized As Dozens Remain Buried Under Rubble
ZeroHedge.com
A powerful 6.2-magnitude earthquake followed by a series of aftershocks rocked central Italy on early Wednesday, burying residents under rubble as they slept and killing at least 38 people. Strong tremors were felt in the country’s capital, Rome, and several small towns and villages have been seriously damaged.
The temblor hit at around 3:30 a.m. local time near Norcia, 50 miles southeast of Perugia, and was felt more than 100 miles away in Rome. Several large aftershocks soon followed. As dawn broke, stunned locals picked through ruins in the worst-affected towns of Amatrice and Accumoli. Italy’s defense ministry mobilized the army to help in the search for survivors, NBC reports.
Video Shows Scale of Destruction in Amatrice
The center of Amatrice was devastated, with entire palazzos razed to the ground. Aerial images from the fire department showed whole streets flattened. “There are people under the rubble,” the town’s mayor, Sergio Pirozzi, told state-run broadcaster RAI. “The town isn’t here anymore” adding that “The ancient doors have come down. We need help from the civic protection [services],” he said to Radi Rai.
At least 38 people have been confirmed dead — including 17 in Amatrice alone, a spokeswoman for Italy’s civil protection agency told NBC News. Francesca Maffini said 11 others were killed in Accumoli and 9 in the town of Arquata. She told NBC News that residents in Amatrice were “distraught” and that schools were being used as makeshift shelters for the many displaced.
“We flew to Amatrice from Rome in a helicopter so I saw it from the air,” she said. “There are a lot of historical buildings that are destroyed. It’s really bad.”
Residents, rescuers and even priests used shovels and their bare hands to dig out survivors in the devastated town. A firefighter told reporters there were as many as 70 people buried in the ruins. The town’s hospital has been badly damaged and patients moved into the streets, Reuters reported.
Authorities said the quake was similar in scale to the devastating 2009 temblor in nearby L’Aquila that killed more than 300 people, urging Italians to give blood and donate blankets, medicine and water.
Roads were blocked in several areas of the mountainous region, severely hampering efforts to assess the damage and deploy rescue operations. A key road bridge over the Castellano River leading to Amatrice was declared unsafe.
“We need chain saws, shears to cut iron bars, and jacks to remove beams: everything, we need everything,” one civil protection worker Andrea Gentili told the AP.
Infrastructure minister Graziano Del Rio and Fabrizio Curcio, head of Italy’s Civil Protection Department, were on their way to reach the affected areas, the government said. Curcio told a news conference that the region is popular with tourists escaping the August heat of Rome, with more residents than at other times of the year.
Terremoto Amatrice-Accumoli, finora estratti dalle macerie 11 corpi senza vita – https://t.co/DeBPtLA9j1 pic.twitter.com/qYbm24YR71
— Rietinvetrina.it (@rietin_vetrina) August 24, 2016
Facebook activated its safety check-in service for the affected area Wednesday morning and the U.S. State Department urged all American citizens in the region to check in with friends and family to let them know they were safe.
#RaiTV airing photos of damage: pic.twitter.com/eFO1a9dHB9
— Carlos Suarez (@CarlosSuarezCNN) August 24, 2016
Italy sits on two fault lines, making it one of the most seismically active countries in Europe. Wednesday’s quake occurred along a fault in the central Apennine Mountains, which span Italy from the Gulf of Taranto in the south to the southern edge of the Po River basin in the north, the USGS said. “The whole ceiling fell but did not hit me,” Amatrice resident Maria Gianni told the AP. “I just managed to put a pillow on my head and I wasn’t hit luckily, just slightly injured my leg.”
Amatrice @SkyTG24 pic.twitter.com/JElPrnDzd7
— flavio maccarone (@magar81) August 24, 2016
The quake woke people up in Rome, where lights swayed and car alarms went off. About 100 miles northeast of Rome in the town of Ceseli, Lina Mercantini also felt the temblor. “It was so strong,” she said. “It seemed the bed was walking across the room by itself with us on it.”