Death toll from Italian earthquake rises

A night view of the largely destroyed Lazio mountain village of Amatrice, Italy, one week after the devastating 6.2 magnitude earthquake on early morning 24 August. Photo: EPA/Massimo Percossi

A night view of the largely destroyed Lazio mountain village of Amatrice, Italy, one week after the devastating 6.2 magnitude earthquake on early morning 24 August. Photo: EPA/Massimo Percossi

Published Aug 31, 2016

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Rome - The death toll from the massive earthquake that devastated central Italy rose by two to 294 on Wednesday, as a body was extracted from a collapsed hotel and a man injured by last week's calamity died in hospital.

The body was found among the ruins of the Hotel Roma in Amatrice, the town worst affected by the 6-magnitude quake.

“It was necessary to work for several days [to extract] this victim,” Emanuele Gissi, an engineer for Italy's fire services, told the SkyTG24 news channel.

Gissi said that according to the Hotel Roma's register, no more people should be trapped under its rubble, but firefighters still needed to inspect 15 rooms. “The work is particularly complicated,” he said.

The other victim was also from Amatrice. He was a 23-year-old man who died in a hospital in Pescara, RAI public broadcaster and other Italian media reported.

According to a provisional count that has yet to be made official by the Protezione Civile, Italy's civil defence agency, the August 24 earthquake killed 233 people from Amatrice, 11 from nearby Accumoli and 50 from Arquata del Tronto.

It has been followed by more than 3 000 aftershocks, according to the Italian National Institute for Geophysics and Vulcanology. Wednesday's strongest happened at around 11:30am GMT and had a magnitude of 3.9.

The Protezione Civile said a national fundraising campaign for stricken areas had surpassed the 11-million-euro mark, while the number of people hosted in makeshift camps had risen to about 4 000.

Speaking on Rai public television, Infrastructure and Transport Minister Graziano Delrio said temporary wooden homes would be ready for earthquake survivors “in four-five months,” meaning that they will likely be still in tents at the start of winter.

Repairing quake-damaged towns “will take years,” Delrio added, amid widespread fears that work will be snared by corruption and bureaucratic tangles, as in previous post-quake reconstruction efforts.

“The government is ready to play its part,” Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said in an online newsletter. “We don't want to leave behind anybody, anybody,” he added.

Debt-ridden Italy is expected to ask European Union permission to deviate from deficit reduction targets to free up funding for earthquake prevention, a priority that has been neglected in recent decades.

DPA

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