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159 killed in Italy quake, 368 injured
AP on August 25, 2016, 11:17 am
The earthquake that struck central Italy on Wednesday has killed at least 159 people.
Rescue crews are using bulldozers and their bare hands are racing to dig out survivors from an earthquake that has reduced three central Italian towns to rubble.
The death toll now stands at 159 but the number of dead and missing is uncertain given the thousands of vacationers in the area for summer's final days.
Residents wakened before dawn by the tremor emerged from their crumbled homes to find what they described as apocalyptic scenes ``like Dante's Inferno,'' with entire blocks of buildings turned into piles of sand and rock, thick dust choking the air and a putrid smell of gas.
``The town isn't here anymore, said Sergio Pirozzi, the mayor of the hardest-hit town, Amatrice. ``I believe the toll will rise.
The magnitude 6.2 quake struck at 3:36 am on Wednesday and was felt across a broad swath of central Italy, including Rome, where residents woke to a long swaying followed by aftershocks.
The tremor shook the Lazio region and Umbria and Le Marche on the Adriatic coast, a highly seismic area that has witnessed major quakes in the past.
Dozens of people were pulled out alive by rescue teams and volunteers that poured in from around Italy.
``She's alive!'' two women cheered as they ran up the street in Pescara del Tronto, one of the three hardest hit hamlets, after a 10-year-old girl was pulled from the rubble 17 hours after the quake struck.
And there were wails when bodies emerged.
``Unfortunately, 90 per cent we pull out are dead, but some make it, that's why we are here,'' said Christian Bianchetti, a volunteer from Rieti who was working in devastated Amatrice where flood lights were set up so the rescue could continue through the night.
Premier Matteo Renzi visited the zone Wednesday, greeted rescue teams and survivors, and pledged that ``No family, no city, no hamlet will be left behind.''
Italy's civil protection agency reported the death toll had risen to 159 by late Wednesday; at least 368 others were injured.
Worst affected were the tiny towns of Amatrice and Accumoli near Rieti, some 100 kilometres (60 miles) northeast of Rome, and Pescara del Tronto, some 25 kilometres further east.
Italy's civil protection agency set up tent cities around each hamlet to accommodate the thousands of homeless.
Italy's health minister, Beatrice Lorenzin, visiting the devastated area, said many of the victims were children.
The quake zone is a popular spot for Romans with second homes, and the population swells in August when most Italians take their summer holiday before school resumes.
The medieval centre of Amatrice was devastated, with the hardest-hit half of the city cut off by rescue crews digging by hand to get to trapped residents.
The birthplace of the famed spaghetti all'amatriciana bacon and tomato sauce, the city was full for this weekend's planned festival honouring its native dish.
Some 70 guests filled its top Hotel Roma, famed for its amatriciana, where five bodies were pulled from the rubble before the operation was suspended when conditions became too dangerous late Wednesday.
Among those killed was an 11-year-old boy who had initially shown signs of life. The fate of the dozens of other guests wasn't immediately known.
Amatrice is made up of 69 hamlets that teams from around Italy were working to reach with sniffer dogs, earth movers and other heavy equipment.
In the city centre, rocks and metal tumbled onto the streets and dazed residents huddled in piazzas as more than 200 aftershocks jolted the region throughout the day, some as strong as magnitude 5.1.
As the August sun turned into a nighttime chill, residents, civil protection workers and even priests dug with shovels, bulldozers and their bare hands to reach survivors.
A steady column of dump trucks brought tons of twisted metal, rock and cement down the hill and onto the highway toward Rome, along with a handful of ambulances bringing the injured to Rome hospitals.
Despite a massive rescue and relief effort _ with army, Alpine crews, carabineri, firefighters, Red Cross crews and volunteers, it wasn't enough: A few miles (kilometres) north of Amatrice, in Illica, residents complained that rescue workers were slow to arrive and that loved ones were trapped.
The devastation harked back to the 2009 quake that killed more than 300 people in and around L'Aquila, about 90 kilometres (55 miles) south of the latest quake.
The town, which still hasn't fully recovered, sent emergency teams Wednesday to help with the rescue and set up tent camps for residents unwilling to stay indoors because of aftershocks.
President Barack Obama, speaking by telephone to Italian President Sergio Mattarella, said the US sent its thoughts and prayers to the quake victims and saluted the ``quick action'' by first responders, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.
Pope Francis skipped his traditional catechism for his Wednesday general audience and instead invited the thousands of pilgrims in St. Peter's Square to recite the rosary with him. He also sent a six-man squad from the Vatican's fire department to help with the rescue.
