Italy rescuers comb quake rubble
Italian rescuers are continuing to search for survivors under buildings wrecked by a devastating earthquake which killed at least 179 people.
With 1,500 injured and some 17,000 homeless after Monday’s quake struck L’Aquila and its region, many survivors spent the night in shelters.
Emergency crews were hampered by after-shocks and rain, but have reportedly pulled 100 people alive from rubble.
Authorities put the number of people still missing at 34.
Rescuers were forced to briefly postpone their efforts as the after-shocks dislodged more rubble from buildings.
From close up, you realise that every single building has been affected. Some have just lost a few tiles, the windows are gone, or there are cracks in the plaster work.
In other buildings, it is much more dramatic – big chunks of them seem to have slid off, and yet more buildings have collapsed completely in on themselves.
It demonstrates the random nature of this earthquake – there is a four-storey apartment block that has just collapsed flat like a pancake, and yet the two buildings on either side seem relatively unscathed.
A BBC correspondent in L’Aquila said the strongest came around 2200 GMT on Monday and made the ground feel like jelly for a few seconds.
Survivors spent the night in hotels, cars or a tent city which has been erected in the medieval hill city.
At the tent city on the outskirts of the city, volunteers handed out blankets, food and water to evacuees numbering 600.
Camp co-ordinator Paolo Diani said they were having to prioritise inadequate resources.
"As far as this first night is concerned, we gave shelter to elderly people and children, while we wait for more tents for everybody.
"And the tents will arrive tomorrow for all the population."
As the pouring rain turned brick dust into a white sludge, exhausted emergency workers toiled through the night, pulling away bricks and broken pieces of wood with their bare hands.
Under the eerie glare of floodlights, they combed the rubble of a university dormitory where two students were reportedly found early on Tuesday and where several more were believed to be buried.
Cranes and diggers were also being used in the rescue effort.
Several people were arrested for looting and police were patrolling the area monitoring buildings ripped open by the quake, Reuters reported.
Many houses in L’Aquila have been reduced to piles of rubble, and the streets dotted with crushed cars.
In the village of Onna, with a population 350, the quake killed at least 38 people.
At least 5,000 rescue workers are in the region and hospitals have appealed for help from doctors and nurses throughout Italy.
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has said the country has the resources to handle the disaster.
The state of emergency in place means that more resources can be brought in to give the region what it needs, the BBC’s Duncan Kennedy reports from L’Aquila.
Shattered heritage
Between 3,000 and 10,000 buildings are thought to have been damaged in L’Aquila, making the 13th-Century city of 70,000 uninhabitable for some time.
Parts of many of the ancient churches and castles in and around the city have collapsed.
L’Aquila is considered one of Italy’s architectural treasures, but the age of the buildings makes them vulnerable to quakes.
"The damage is more serious than we can imagine," Giuseppe Proietti, a culture ministry official in Rome, told the Associated Press news agency.
"The historic centre of L’Aquila has been devastated."
Source: BBC News
Related posts:
- Several killed in Italian quake
- China’s quake epicentre nightmare
- Italy 1-1 Romania
- Netherlands 3-0 Italy
- France 0-2 Italy & Netherlands 2-0 Romania
Short URL: http://axxanews.com/?p=1138
Posted by Axxa News Team
on Apr 7 2009. Filed under News.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
I’m the only one in this world. Can please someone join me in this life? Or maybe death…