Many Feared Dead as Avalanche Strikes Italian Hotel

The Hotel Rigopiano, in Italy’s mountainous Abruzzo region, was struck on Wednesday. Rescuers are at the scene, but there are no signs of life in the rubble.

[Update: According to sources, eight survivors have been found under the snow.]

Up to 35 people are believed to be trapped in an Italian hotel that was engulfed by an avalanche on Wednesday afternoon. The property, the Hotel Rigopiano, is located near the town of Farindola in the region of Abruzzo. The area was subjected to four strong earthquakes on Wednesday and it is reported that the hotel’s guests had gathered in the ground floor of the property to be evacuated when the avalanche struck between 4:30 and 5:40 p.m. local time.

The force of the avalanche brought down part of the building’s roof and, some reports say, shifted it off its foundations.

Snow and on-going tremors have hampered the rescue effort, with much of central Italy affected. Rescuers at the scene say that they have heard no signs of life in the rubble.

Two people who were outside of the hotel at the time of the avalanche have survived. Giampiero Parete, who went to retrieve an item from his car when the building was struck, told the BBC, “I was covered by the snow but I managed to get out. The car was not submerged and I waited for the rescuers to arrive.”

Parete immediately raised the alarm to the authorities, but it took hours for emergency services to react to his calls. His wife and two children are among the missing. An official casualty list, as quoted by Italian paper La Stampa, indicates that most of the victims are Italian.

Antonio Crocetta, an emergency worker at the scene, spoke of the difficulties of the rescue effort to Reuters. “The hotel is almost completely destroyed. We’ve called out but we’ve heard no replies, no voices. We’re digging and looking for people,” he said.

Italy’s Civil Protection department said that only two bodies have been recovered. Titti Postiglione, head of the department’s emergency office, said that both more quakes and avalanches were possible. “This is an enormously complex rescue operation,” she told the agency.

[Photo: Alpine and Speleological Rescue Team via Agence France-Presse/Getty Images]