Italy quake death toll hits 241 as questions mount

AMATRICE (ITALY) — The death toll from a powerful earthquake in central Italy rose to 241 yesterday, amid fears many more corpses remain buried in the rubble of devastated mountain villages.

As rescuers sifted through collapsed masonry in the search for survivors, questions mounted as to why there had been so many deaths so soon after the 2009 L’Aquila disaster exposed Italy’s vulnerability to earthquakes.

“In Amatrice, we are already over 200 deaths,” said Mr Sergio Pirozzi, mayor of one of the worst-affected villages, suggesting the total number of victims could rise significantly.

Amatrice normally has a population of about 2,500, but it was packed with visitors when the quake struck as people slept in the early hours of Wednesday. The fate of 28 of 32 guests staying in the village’s Hotel Roma was still unclear.

The Red Cross began shipping in food and water supplies for homeless residents. Among those who came to pick up emergency provisions were Mrs Maria Atrimala, 48, and her 15-year-old daughter.

“We escaped by pure luck, the stairs of the house held and we ran, blindly, in the dark and dust,” she said with tears rolling down her face.

“When we got out we could hear the cries of people still trapped and we helped those we could.

“We were in L’Aquila when the earthquake struck there, and now this. We have friends, relatives who didn’t make it. What the future holds, I don’t know.”

Hundreds of people spent the night sleeping in their cars, in hastily assembled tents or as guests of families in less-affected nearby areas. One of them, Monica, said a 4.5-magnitude aftershock, which rattled the area just after 5am had left her numb. “We have lost our house. So many friends and family are dead. We have lost everything, even our fear,” she said.

The extensive damage to lightly used properties has raised the spectre of some of the smaller hamlets in the region being abandoned altogether.

“If we don’t get help, L’Arquata is finished,” said Mr Aleandro Petrucci, mayor of Arquata del Tronto, which accounted for 57 of the confirmed deaths to date. Mr Petrucci said it was impossible to say exactly how many people were in the 13 tiny communities that make up L’Arquata when the disaster struck.

In Pescara del Tronto, which was virtually razed by the quake, there were only four permanent resident families but there could have been up to 300 people there on Wednesday.

Measuring 6.0-6.2 in magnitude, the quake’s epicentre was near Amatrice, and its shallow depth of 4km exacerbated its impact. It occurred without warning, but in an area with a long history of killer quakes.

The Civil Protection agency, which is coordinating the rescue effort, said that in addition to the dead, 264 people had suffered injuries serious enough to be hospitalised. Several of them are in a critical state.

Although rescue workers were pessimistic about the chance of finding any more survivors, officials stressed that the last survivor of an earthquake in 2009 in nearby L’Aquila was pulled from the rubble some 72 hours after it struck.

Prime Minister Matteo Renzi was chairing an emergency Cabinet meeting on the crisis. “The objective is to rebuild and start again,” he said, vowing lessons would be learnt from L’Aquila, which still bears scars from the quake that left 300 people dead.

After L’Aquila, the Civil Protection agency made almost €1 billion (S$1.5 billion) available for upgrading buildings in seismically vulnerable areas. But the take-up of grants has been low, largely because of the cumbersome application process, according to critics.

“Here in the middle of a seismic zone, nothing has ever been done,” said Mr Dario Nanni of the Italian Council of Architects. “It does not cost that much more when renovating a building to make it comply with earthquake standards. But less than 20 per cent of buildings do.”

Mr Nanni said the quake’s impact had been increased by the widespread use of cement rather than wood beams. “These indestructible beams hit walls like a hammer and that is what made so many (houses) collapse.” AFP