ACCUMOLI (Web Desk) – At least 120 people have died after a powerful earthquake struck a remote area of central Italy Wednesday, said Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, warning that the figure could still rise.
Some 368 people were injured in the tremor, he said at a press conference in the Rieti region, not far from the epicentre of the 6.0-6.2 magnitude quake.
“This is not a final toll,” Renzi added.
Hundreds of people were facing a chilly night in hastily assembled tents as the risk of aftershocks made it too risky for them to return to their homes.
Scores of buildings were reduced to dusty piles of masonry in communities close to the epicentre of the pre-dawn quake, which had a magnitude of between 6.0 and 6.2.
It hit a remote area straddling Umbria, Marche and Lazio at a time of year when second home owners and other visitors swell the number of people staying there. Many of the victims were from Rome.
The devastated area is just to the north of L’Aquila, the city where some 300 people died in a previous quake in 2009.
Italy’s civil protection unit confirmed 73 fatalities in and around the villages of Amatrice, Accumoli and Arquata del Tronto.
Guido Bordo, 69, lost his sister and her husband after they were trapped inside their holiday house in the hamlet of Illica, near Accumoli.
“There’s no sound from them, we only heard their cats,” he told AFP before the deaths were confirmed.
“I wasn’t here, as soon as the quake happened, I rushed here. They managed to pull my sister’s children out, they’re in hospital now,” he added, wringing his hands in anguish.
Sergio Camosi escaped in his underwear with his wife and daughter just before his house caved in. “We ran down the stairs but the door was blocked by stones so we had to climb out the window,” he said tearfully.
The victims included a nine-month-old baby girl whose parents survived, an 18-month-old toddler and two other young children who died along with their parents in Accumoli.
Two boys aged four and seven were saved by their quick-thinking grandmother, who ushered them under a bed as soon as the shaking began, according to reports. She also survived but lost her husband. And there were sobs in Illica when two sisters were reunited with their poodle, Lello, pulled alive from their abandoned house.
