More people rescued at avalanche site
With cheers of joy, rescue crews pulled survivors from the debris of an avalanche-crushed hotel in central Italy.
Two days after the massive snow slide buried around 30 people at the resort, sic people were pulled from the wreckage with two children among those rescued.
First word of the discovery came at around 11am, news that was met with exhilaration since at least four people had already been found dead after the avalanche hit Wednesday afternoon and dumped upwards of five metres of snow on the hotel.
Video released by rescuers showed a boy, wearing blue snow pants and a matching ski shirt, emerging from the structure through a snow hole. Emergency crews mussed his hair in celebration.
"Bravo, Bravo!" they cheered.
Next came a woman with a long ponytail wearing red snow pants, appearing fully alert. Both were helped to a stretcher for the helicopter ride out.
"This first news has obviously repaid all the rescuers' efforts," said Italy's deputy interior minister, Filippo Bubbico.
About 30 people were trapped inside the luxury Hotel Rigopiano in the Gran Sasso mountain range when the avalanche hit the region which had been rocked by four earthquakes earlier on Wednesday.
Two people initially survived the devastation and called out for help.
One of them, Giampiero Parete, had called his boss and begged him to call in rescue crews because his wife and two children were inside.
The wife, Adriana Vranceanu, 43, and son Gianfilippo, were reunited with their father at the hospital in Pescara on Friday but the fate of their daughter, Ludovica, wasn't immediately known.
The number of the survivors found and extracted from the rubble evolved over the course of the day.
"We found five people alive. We're pulling them out. Send us a helicopter," a rescuer said Friday over firefighters' radio.
Later, the number rose to eight people, although the civil protection agency itself would only confirm six survivors found.
Firefighter Giuseppe Romano then said more positive news was unfolding:
"There are signs from other people. Other people are responding to our requests," he said.
Rescue crews said the first group of survivors had been found in a kitchen area, and had survived thanks to an air pocket that formed when reinforced cement walls partially resisted the avalanche's violent power.
"It's probable that they realised the risk and took protective measures," Romano said.
Those being rescued were in remarkably good condition and were being flown to area hospitals, rescue workers said.
Titi Postiglione, operations chief of the civil protection agency, also said the survivors would be helping rescuers trying to find others trapped in the hotel.
"They can give us a series of indications to help with our intervention plan, information to understand what happened and help direct the search," she said.
Two bodies were recovered on the first day of searching and RAI state TV reported that two other bodies had been located but not yet removed.
The operations have been hampered by difficulty in accessing the remote hotel, located 180 kilometres north-east of Rome and close to the Adriatic city of Pescara.
Prosecutors have opened a manslaughter investigation into the tragedy and are looking into whether the avalanche threat was taken seriously enough, according to Italian media.
Farindola Mayor Ilario Lacchetta said the hotel had 24 guests, four of them children, and 12 employees onsite at the time of the avalanche.
