Quake kills at least 50
AMATRICE, Italy — A devastating earthquake rocked central Italy early today, collapsing homes on top of residents as they slept. At least 50 people were killed in hard-hit towns where rescue crews raced to dig survivors out of the rubble, but the toll was likely to rise as crews reached homes in more remote hamlets.
“The town isn’t here anymore,” said Sergio Pirozzi, the mayor of Amatrice.
The magnitude 6 quake struck at 3:36 a.m. and was felt across a broad swath of central Italy, including Rome, where residents felt a long swaying followed by aftershocks. The temblor shook the Lazio region and Umbria and Le Marche on the Adriatic coast.
Premier Matteo Renzi planned to head to the zone later today and promised: “No family, no city, no hamlet will be left behind.”
The hardest-hit towns were Amatrice and Accumoli near Rieti, some 80 miles northeast of Rome, and Pescara del Tronto further east. Italy’s civil protection agency said the preliminary toll was 50 dead, several hundred injured and thousands in need of temporary housing, though it stressed the numbers were fluid.
The center of Amatrice was devastated, with entire buildings razed and the air thick with dust and smelling strongly of gas.
Rocks and metal tumbled onto the streets and dazed residents huddled in piazzas as some 39 aftershocks jolted the region into the early morning hours, some as strong as 5.1.
“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.”
Another woman, sitting in front of her destroyed home with a blanket over her shoulders, said she didn’t know what had become of her loved ones.
“It was one of the most beautiful towns of Italy and now there’s nothing left,” she said, too distraught to give her name. “I don’t know what we’ll do.”
As daylight dawned, residents, civil protection workers and even priests began digging out with shovels, bulldozers and their bare hands, trying to reach survivors. There was relief as a woman was pulled out alive from one building, followed by a dog.
“We need chain saws, shears to cut iron bars and jacks to remove beams: everything, we need everything,” civil protection worker Andrea Gentili told The Associated Press. Italy’s national blood drive association appealed for donations to Rieti’s hospital.
The devastation harked back to the 2009 quake that killed more than 300 people in and around L’Aquila, about 55 miles south of the latest quake. The town sent emergency teams today to help with the rescue.
“I don’t know what to say. We are living this immense tragedy,” said the Rev. Savino D’Amelio, a parish priest in Amatrice. “We are only hoping there will be the least number of victims possible and that we all have the courage to move on.”
Another hard-hit town was Pescara del Tronto, in the Le Marche region, where the main road was covered in debris. The ANSA news agency reported 10 dead there without citing the source, but there was no confirmation.
Residents were digging their neighbors out by hand since emergency crews hadn’t yet arrived in force. Photos taken from the air by regional firefighters showed the town essentially flattened; Italy requested EU satellite images of the whole area to get the scope of the damage.
The Italian geological service put the magnitude at 6.0; the U.S. Geological Survey reported 6.2 with the epicenter at Norcia, about 105 miles northeast of Rome, and with a relatively shallow depth of 6 miles.
“Quakes with this magnitude at this depth in our territory in general create building collapses, which can result in deaths,” said the head of Italy’s civil protection service, Fabrizio Curcio.
