6 Survivors Found at Site of Italy Hotel Destroyed by Avalanche
Search for Survivors After Avalanche in Italy
An avalanche has buried a mountainside hotel in central Italy. Corridors were piled high with snow, leaves and branches. Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni of Italy praised the efforts of rescue workers who dug through the snow, looking for survivors.
By ELSA BUTLER on January 19, 2017. Photo by Italian Fire Department, via European Pressphoto Agency.Watch in Times Video »
ROME — With shouts of “Bravo!” and rounds of applause, rescue workers pulled a frigid but buoyant boy from the snow-covered rubble of an Italian hotel on Friday, one of six survivors found two days after an avalanche destroyed the building, officials said.
The boy, dressed in blue snow pants and a fleece shirt, appeared alert and able to walk on his own as rescuers workers tussled his hair, helped him to a stretcher and then set about retrieving his mother.
“They were so happy,” one rescue worker, Marco Bini, told Sky TG24 about the pair. “Their faces lit up.”
The boy and his mother were pulled from a hole cut through several feet of snow, debris and a concrete ceiling, officials said.
Workers in central Italy found the survivors at the site of an isolated hotel that was destroyed by an avalanche on Wednesday, officials said, but at least 20 others are missing. Mr. Bini said that the survivors had been found in an area above the hotel’s kitchen, and that they had lit a fire to keep warm.
The first contact with the survivors came around 11 a.m. local time, more than a day after the Hotel Rigopiano in the Apennine Mountains was buried under tons of snow, dirt and trees.
“In one room, there was a mother and her son; in the room next door, there were four people, but it was more difficult to reach them,” Luca Cari, a spokesman for the Fire Department, said by telephone.
Officials said that finding survivors had lifted the spirits of search-and-rescue teams. Titti Postiglione, a spokeswoman for the civil protection department, called the news from the site “decidedly comforting,”
The avalanche is believed to have been caused by a series of strong earthquakes in the region on Wednesday, and the chances of anyone surviving the harsh conditions and billowing snow had been considered remote.
“It’s a very complex situation,” Ms. Postiglione said at a televised news conference, adding that the department’s avalanche experts were evaluating “potential risks to rescue operators.”
Television images showed ambulances rushing to the scene, which had been cut off by heavy snowfall, and snowplows clearing the road to the hotel, nestled in the Gran Sasso National Park, allowing through heavy machinery that would help rescue workers dig through the debris.
Early rescue efforts were slow, with the first help reaching the hotel early Thursday only after traveling more than five miles on skis and snowshoes. Improved weather conditions on Friday allowed helicopters carrying medics to travel to the hotel.
There was no additional information about the condition of the survivors, but Filippo Bubbico, the deputy interior minister, told a radio station that a young girl was among them.
Relatives of the missing waited for news at a hospital in the nearby town of Penne, in the province of Pescara.
Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said the rescue efforts had been hindered by “unprecedented” difficulties, citing the heaviest snowfall in decades and the strong earthquakes on Wednesday.
The Rigopiano, a four-star hotel, had 43 rooms. It was not clear how many guests were staying there at the time of the avalanche, although most estimates put the number at about 30.
P.C: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/20/world/europe/italy-avalanche-rescue-hotel.html
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