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Updated 9.38pm
THE DEATH TOLL from a powerful earthquake in central Italy rose to 250 today as rescuers continued a grim search for corpses and powerful aftershocks rocked the devastated area.
The bulk of the confirmed deaths – 193 at the latest count – were in the small town of Amatrice, where Rita Rosine, 63, wept as she mourned her 75-year-old sister, who was buried under the ruins of her house.
“The situation is worse than in war. It’s awful, awful… they say it will take two days to dig her out because they have to shore up the surrounding buildings,” she told AFP.
She didn’t deserve to die like that, she was so good.
As hopes of finding any more survivors in the rubble faded, questions mounted as to why there had been so many deaths in a sparsely-populated area so soon after a 2009 earthquake in the nearby city of L’Aquila left 300 people dead.
That disaster, just 50km (30 miles) south, underscored the region’s vulnerability to seismic events – but preparations for a fresh quake have been exposed as limited at best.
Giuseppe Saieva, the chief public prosecutor for most of the area affected, said he would be opening an investigation into whether anyone could be held responsible for the disaster.
In Amatrice, a 4.3 magnitude aftershock shook the already badly damaged village today, fueling fears of fresh collapses which could hamper the rescue operation.
Tonight, the Department of Foreign Affairs told TheJournal.ie that no requests for consular assistance have been received. They urged anyone affected to get in contact, however.
Amatrice normally has a population of around 2,500 but it was packed with visitors when the quake struck as people slept in the early hours of Wednesday.
A total of 215 people have been rescued from the rubble since Wednesday morning. But there have been no reports of survivors being found since Wednesday evening, when eight-year-old Giorgia was rescued 16 hours after being trapped, having been located by a labrador called Leo.
Her parents also survived but her 10-year-old sister did not make it. “I hope Giorgia will be able to forget what she went through,” Angelo Moroni, the head of the team that saved her, told La Repubblica.
The last survivor in L’Aquila was found 72 hours after the quake. The Red Cross began shipping in food and water supplies for homeless residents.
Cries of the trapped
Among those who came to pick up emergency provisions were 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 that didn’t make it. What the future holds I don’t know.”
Hundreds of people spent the night sleeping in their cars or in hastily-assembled tents, the aftershocks adding to their discomfort.
Mario, a father of two small boys, said he was still in shock. “We slept in the car last night, though with the quakes it was hard to sleep at all,” he told AFP between sips of Coke.
We’ve booked a tent for tonight. But then tomorrow, the next day?
The extensive damage to lightly-used properties has raised the spectre of some of the smaller hamlets in the region becoming ghost towns.
“If we don’t get help, l’Arquata is finished,” said Aleandro Petrucci, the mayor of Arquata del Tronto, which accounted for 57 of the confirmed deaths to date.
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 are only four permanently resident families but there could have been up to 300 people there on Wednesday.
History
Measuring 6.0-6.2 magnitude, the quake’s epicentre was near Amatrice and its shallow depth of four kilometres (2.5 miles) 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, 365 people had suffered injuries serious enough to be hospitalised. Several of them are in a critical state.
Prime Minister Matteo Renzi vowed lessons from L’Aquila, which still bears the scars of 2009, would be applied. “The objective is to rebuild and start again,” he said.
After L’Aquila, the Civil Protection agency made almost €1 billion available for upgrading buildings in seismically-vulnerable areas.
But the take-up of grants has been low, because of form-filling attached, critics say.
“Here in the middle of a seismic zone, nothing has ever been done,” said 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% of buildings do.
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.”
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9 of the 12 Irish MEPs supported the position of the Irish Air Line Pilots Association.
Europe has disregarded the advice of its own scientific advisors, and missed out on an opportunity to produce scientifically based rules in favour of commercial interests.
It’s a sad day for aviation safety!
I thought pilots could only fly a maximum of 900 hours per year , why does the above say a reduction from 1300 hours to 1000 hours?
What was advice?
Does this not mean shorter working year for pilots? Good for FTE bad for contract?
Once again those unaccountable pen pushers delve into industries they know nothing about, this is bad for passengers and pilots alike. The winners are arsehole airline management who will award themselves bonuses and politicians creating busywork for themselves. All the scientifically based rest and ftl rules go in the bin.
Pilot can fly for 11 hours, truck driver can only drive a max of 10. Somethings not well thought out.
but in fairness no auto pilot on a truck and only one driver
At least if a truck has an emergency just pull over to the side of the road not the same for aircraft . And some air operations are single pilot.
And a doctor can work for 36 hours.
Commercial airlines have few single pilot. Do ialpa want hours flying even lower … is that why they object?
If you understood what commercial flying is, you would know that all commercial pilots operating with companies with an AOC are bound by JAR-FCL which is the same as airline pilots.
You are correct I don’t know the technical definition of commercial as I don’t work in the industry. But as a layman reading the article my take is that iapla want even further reductions and restrictions on flying time which would require more pilots to run a schedule. No doubt a pay cut isn’t part of their plans. Contract pilots likely to increase at progressive airlines. One layman’s view only.
Have the airline pilots been asked for their opinion on the rule changes and if not why not, judging by their negative reaction it seems not, but now the EU have once again gone ahead and changed the rules without consultation.
So the cost will just go up
What people have to remember regarding pilots hours is they are calculated from off blocks (plane pushed off stand) to on blocks plane arrives at the gate.
You then need to factor in taxi delays ATC flow restrictions,Turn around times of the aircraft and also the pre flight which normally is 1 hour prior to departure+post flight debriefing.
Worst case: try driving your family laden car up rough slippery track into your unlit garage at speed on a dark wet night after 11 hours on the road…
I hope the people that brought this in will be on board when the accident happens, pure madness
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