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Topic: Italy earthquake
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Kindgo
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AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia
An unidentified man takes his daughter to safety after a sudden tremor which followed an earthquake in San Giuliano di Puglia, near Campobasso, Southern Italy, on Friday afternoon, Nov. 1, 2002.
AP Photo/Vincenzo Maizzi
Rescue workers transport a child injured in a school collapse in San Giuliano di Puglia, near Campobasso, central Italy on Thursday, Oct. 31, 2002. A strong earthquake rocked central and southern Italy, killing 6 people at the school.
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God bless,
Kindgo
Inside the will of God there is no failure. Outside the will of God there is no success.
Posts: 4320 | From: Sunny Florida | Registered: Jun 2002
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Kindgo
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New Quake Hits Italy as Last Bodies Found in School
SAN GIULIANO DI PUGLIA, Italy (Reuters) - A major tremor shook southeastern Italy Friday, just as rescue workers pulled the last bodies from a school reduced to rubble by an earthquake that killed 26 small children.
Police said they had pulled the last body from the wreckage and that the final overall death toll stood at 29.
The latest quake, which measured 5.3 on the Richter scale, led police to call on residents to evacuate the medieval town of San Giuliano di Puglia to avoid any more danger.
The new tremor was another shock for the dazed residents of the farming town of 1,200, grieving over children entombed when their school collapsed like a house of cards. An entire class of 6-year-olds died.
Some 26 children, mostly aged between six and 10, and a teacher were killed when a quake of 5.4 on the Richter scale hit the south-central Molise region Thursday morning. Two elderly women also died when their homes collapsed on them.
It was the strongest quake to hit Italy since a series killed 11 people in the central Umbria region in 1977.
Rescue workers, who managed to pull out 35 people alive, mostly children, from the collapsed building, were still picking through the wreckage when the second temblor struck Friday. At least one firefighter was injured.
"The people in the area have already suffered a severe earthquake yesterday, many of them haven't slept last night and now more tremors ... There is a state of general panic," said Sergio Silvestrini at national firefighter headquarters in Rome.
Thursday's quake left at least 3,000 people in the area homeless, which could rise after the latest big tremor.
BELL-TOWER CRUMBLES
Witnesses said the latest tremor shook the whole town of San Giuliano di Puglia, toppling at least one building which was already damaged and sending panicked residents into the streets.
Parents in the makeshift morgue, a sports center not officially opened, rushed to get out of the building.
"I was inside the morgue, everyone panicked and wanted to get out. Some were crushed in the stampede," one father said.
Many residents jumped in their cars to flee, blocking ambulances trying to get into the town.
In nearby Castellino del Biferno, the bell-tower and part of the roof of a church collapsed, and first reports said two people may have been injured.
"Rescuers are there but they're being really cautious because it's very dangerous," Mario d'Angelo, a municipal employee told Reuters.
The small community was stunned after the collapse of the school for nursery, primary and middle-school pupils, who were enjoying a Halloween party when the quake hit.
Pia, a 9-year-old survivor, said: "I remember the teacher was speaking and then we felt the ground shake and the ceiling fell on our heads. Then everyone started shouting, everyone was scared and the rescuers came to save us."
Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi conveyed the nation's condolences by telephone to grief-stricken Mayor Antonio Borrelli, whose daughter was killed at the school.
WORST NIGHTMARE
"Why has this happened? Why haven't they found my son?" a father cried out. A mother clutched a school bag and stared silently as a Red Cross worker comforted her.
Amid the horror, anger was beginning to surface over why the building crumbled when older ones around it survived.
Rescuers said the school, built in the 1950s, was shoddily built. "The concrete roof was too heavy for the walls," rescue worker Mimmo Nigro told Reuters at the site, toys scattered among the wreckage.
A moment of joy briefly broke the gloom before dawn when firefighters freed 8-year-old called Angelo, who had been trapped for 16 hours, his legs pinned by rubble.
Teacher Clementina Simone was under the debris for two hours with 16 children. She said: "I told them to get under the benches just before the stones started falling. We were all saying prayers, I was petrified there would be a second tremor."
Pope John Paul led Italy in prayers for the victims and the Italian sports federation said a minute's silence would be observed at all sports events over the weekend.
In 1980, almost 2,800 people were killed when a quake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale struck south of Naples.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...dc_45&printer=1
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God bless,
Kindgo
Inside the will of God there is no failure. Outside the will of God there is no success.
Posts: 4320 | From: Sunny Florida | Registered: Jun 2002
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Kindgo
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...-2002Oct31.html
An earthquake jolted south-central Italy on Thursday, sending a nursery school roof crashing down on a class of preschoolers during a lunchtime Halloween party. At least five children in the school and two women in nearby homes were killed.
Driven on by faint voices coming from the rubble, frantic rescuers worked into the night to save more than a dozen children who remained trapped after the 5.4 magnitude quake struck the Molise region, shaking the town of Campobasso and surrounding villages northeast of Naples.
San Giuliano Di Puglia, a village of 1,195 people, was the hardest hit. Anguished parents kept a vigil outside the yellow schoolhouse, where 56 children had been celebrating Halloween when the quake struck. Workers guided by flashlights and floodlights carried six dust-covered children from the rubble after night fell.
So far, 26 children and two teachers were rescued. The bodies of five children were pulled from the wreckage earlier in the day.
Applause burst from the tense crowd after one difficult rescue late Thursday. Residents cried, “Giovanni! Giovanni!” when the little boy was brought out on a stretcher.
“As soon as he came out he called me ’Papi’ like he always does,” the boy’s father told RAI state television, which did not give the man’s name.
“I immediately saw he was in good condition. He told me there are many other children still alive, a little shocked but still alive, so the hope is still there that they can save more.”
“I thank God for this gift he has given me,” he said.
Rescuers used cranes, blowtorches and their bare hands to claw at the debris Thursday night, removing roof tiles and slabs of concrete while listening for the faint sounds of children trapped inside.
“That’s what we’re basing the search on. We’re still hearing voices,” Police Col. Antonio Ianuzzi said late Thursday.
Paramedic Antonio Licursi, covered in dust as he emerged from the pit, said he believed at least another dozen children were still trapped.
Tearful parents stood nearby, blocked from the site by a police barrier, sometimes calling out the names of their children. Others waited at nearby hospitals.
“They were all together in the school because they were having a Halloween party,” said Tonino Scarlatelli, an official in the Molise regional president’s office.
“Many buildings have collapsed throughout the village, we fear there might be other victims outside of the school,” he added.
Some of the rescued students told Italian television that older children from the village had come to their class Thursday to teach them about Halloween, an increasingly popular holiday in Italy.
While dozens of children were inside the school at the time of the collapse, others had moved out to the garden for the festivities, perhaps saving lives, news reports said.
Scarlatelli said five children had been killed. Provincial police said at least two women were killed in homes near the school.
The school, built in 1954, had been renovated several times over the years, private TG5 television said. Structures near the school remained standing, but some had large cracks in them. Elsewhere in town, the quake toppled entire buildings.
The government’s forestry department conducted an aerial survey and said about 70 percent of homes in the area were damaged, with collapsed roofs or cracked walls, the AGI news agency said.
“The scenario is devastating,” AGI quoted forestry Cmdr. Luigi Falasca as saying. “Fortunately, the damage is limited to a restricted area.”
The quake’s epicenter was in Campobasso, about 50 miles northeast of Naples and about 140 miles southeast of Rome.
The initial temblor was followed by at least two aftershocks, one with a 2.9 magnitude and another with a 3.7 magnitude — all with their epicenter around Campobasso, said Marco Ludovici, an official with the Civil Defense department in Rome.
The temblor was felt across the Adriatic in Croatia, particularly on high floors of apartment buildings, the Croatian Seismological Institute said.
Rescue teams poured into the tiny village from nearby regions, and Premier Silvio Berlusconi was en route to the area to follow the developments firsthand, the ANSA news agency said.
Also Thursday, a 3.7 magnitude quake hit Mount Etna, the Sicilian volcano that began erupting Sunday. No damage was reported.
The National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology in Rome said the two quakes were not connected. The island of Sicily is about 275 miles southwest of Campobasso. The Etna quake was related to the volcano’s activity, officials said.
In 1980, an earthquake in the area of Naples killed 2,570 people and left 30,000 homeless in the southern Campania and Basilicata regions.
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God bless,
Kindgo
Inside the will of God there is no failure. Outside the will of God there is no success.
Posts: 4320 | From: Sunny Florida | Registered: Jun 2002
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