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| -Signs, Portents, and the Weather- |
| Italy earthquake: 'Many dead' in avalanche-hit hotel |
| 2017-01-20 |
| [Al Jazeera] Several people have died after a ski hotel was buried by an avalanche in earthquake-hit central Italia, according to Italian media. "There are many dead," Antonio Crocetta, the head of a group of Alpine police that was trying to reach the cut-off hotel, was quoted as saying on Thursday. SkyTG24 television said some dead were found inside the Hotel Rigopiano in the town of Farindola on the Gran Sasso mountain in the province of Pescara in the Abruzzo region. Media reports said there had been at least 20 guests and seven staff at the Hotel Rigopiano on the lower slopes of the Gran Sasso mountain when the first of four powerful quakes hit the region on Wednesday morning. The rescuers at the hotel were reported to have a snow mobile capable of transporting up to eight people. Ambulances were blocked by two metres of snow some nine kilometres away, according to the civil protection agency. Antonio Di Marco, president of the province of Pescara, which includes the mountain village of Farindola, close to where the hotel is located, said two people had been found alive. "We don't know yet how many people are unaccounted for or dead," he wrote on his Facebook page. "What is certain is that the building took a direct hit from the avalanche, to the point that it was moved by 10 metres." |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #3 Update from Al Ahram: Rescuers find six people alive in Italy avalanche hotel Rescuers have found six people alive in the Italian mountain hotel devastated by an avalanche on Wednesday evening, local media reported Friday, citing emergency services at the scene. The rescuers have been able to speak to the survivors and called for helicopters to evacuate them after more than 40 hours under the rubble, the reports said. More than 25 people, including children, were thought to have been in the hotel when it was hit by a massive wall of snow. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2017-01-20 18:30 |
| #2 What amazed me is that the avalanche moved the entire building. I would have thought that windows would be broken and maybe some doors pushed open, and even the whole hotel would be buried in snow, with a space in the middle not affected so people could be rescued from the roof or some such. But to move the hotel off its foundation? Unbelievable. |
| Posted by: Barbara 2017-01-20 18:04 |
| #1 Yikes. You mountain people - would helicopters be too risky, on account of causing additional avalanches? |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2017-01-20 17:13 |