Earthquake death toll rises to 179
Rescuers worked frantically through the night in the central Italian city of L’Aquila searching for survivors of the earthquake that has killed 179 and injured more than 1,500.
More than 70 people are still unaccounted for, Italian authorities said today.
The Civil Protection Department confirmed the death toll remained at 179, but is expected to rise as rescuers continue to search for those missing.
Up to half a dozen students were today still feared trapped in the ruins of a university building.
The quake also hit 26 towns and cities around L’Aquila, which lies in a valley surrounded by the Apennine mountains.
The nearby village of Onna was nearly levelled, with 38 people out of 300 inhabitants killed.
L’Aquila, a city of 70,000, seemed largely empty as tens of thousands of homeless survivors moved to makeshift tent camps to spend the night in chilly mountain air. The survivors were unnerved by the dozens of aftershocks that followed the quake, which struck as residents slept at 3.32am local time yesterday.
“All of a sudden I heard a boom, and all the books and ornaments fell down,” said Lucia Ferro, 57, who rushed out of her third-floor apartment wearing only her pyjamas. “I saw the walls shake, and the table moved by itself.”
Ambulances screamed through L’Aquila as firefighters with dogs and a crane worked feverishly to reach people trapped in fallen buildings, including the university building where students are still feared trapped inside. Relatives and friends of the missing stood wrapped in blankets or huddled under umbrellas in the rain.
A body was pulled from the dormitory rubble early this morning, but no further details were immediately available.
Firefighters reported pulling a 21-year-old woman and a 22-year-old man, both of them Italian, from what was an apartment building where many students rented flats. The building’s five storeys had pancaked into one slab of concrete.
Outside the half-collapsed building, part of the University of L’Aquila, tearful young people huddled together, some in their slippers, after being roused from sleep by the quake. Dozens managed to escape as the walls fell around them but hours after the quake, the body of a male student was pulled from the rubble.
“We managed to come down with other students but we had to sneak through a hole in the stairs as the whole floor came down,” said student, Luigi Alfonsi, 22. “I was in bed – it was like it would never end as I heard pieces of the building collapse around me.
“There was water gushing out of broken water pipes, and the corridor which led to the stairs was partially blocked when a piece of the wall came down,” he said.
Some 10,000 to 15,000 buildings were either damaged or destroyed, and at least 50,000 people were left homeless.
The quake also took a severe toll on L’Aquila’s prized architectural heritage. Built as a mountain stronghold during the Middle Ages, it has many Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance buildings.
Damage to monuments was reported as far away as Rome, where cracks appeared at the thermal baths built in the 3rd century by the Emperor Caracalla, Culture Ministry official Giuseppe Proietti said. The damage was not serious, and other Roman monuments suffered no consequences, he said.
Parts of many of the ancient churches around L’Aquila are also believed to have been severely damaged.
L’Aquila, capital of the Abruzzo region, was near the epicentre about 70 miles north-east of Rome in a quake-prone region that had felt at least nine smaller jolts since the beginning of April. Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics put the magnitude at 5.8. More than a dozen aftershocks followed.
Italy’s national police chief Antonio Manganelli said several people had been arrested for looting from abandoned houses.
Premier Silvio Berlusconi declared a state of emergency, freeing up millions of euros to deal with the disaster, and cancelled a visit to Russia so he could deal with the crisis.
Condolences poured in from around the world, including from US President Barack Obama, Pope Benedict XVI and Abdullah Gul, president of quake-prone Turkey.
Part of L’Aquila’s main hospital was evacuated for fear of collapse, and only two operating rooms were in use. Bloodied victims waited in hospital hallways or in the courtyard and many were being treated in the open.
At one of five tent camps set up, survivors received bread and water. People laid on the grass next to heaps of their belongings.
“It’s a catastrophe and an immense shock,” said resident Renato Di Stefano, who had moved with his family to the camp as a precaution. “It’s struck in the heart of the city, we will never forget the pain.”
This was Italy’s deadliest quake since November 23, 1980, when a 6.9-magnitude quake hit southern regions, levelling villages and causing some 3,000 deaths.
Many modern structures in Italy over recent decades have failed to hold up to the rigors of quakes along Italy’s mountainous spine, or in coastal cities like Naples. Despite warnings by geologists and architects, some of these buildings have not been retro-fitted for seismic safety.
