Joy as more rescued from avalanche-hit Italian hotel

FARINDOLA, Italy -- With cheers of joy, rescue crews pulled survivors Friday from the debris of an avalanche-crushed hotel in central Italy, an incredible discovery that boosted spirits two days after the massive snow slide buried around 30 people at the resort. Two children were among the 10 found alive. 

The news was met with exhilaration since at least four people had already been found dead after the avalanche hit Wednesday afternoon and dumped up to 16½ feet of snow on the luxury Hotel Rigopiano, 112 miles northeast of Rome.

First word of the discovery came at around 11 a.m. 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. 

The first group of six survivors rescued Friday had managed to find an air pocket in the kitchen of the hotel.

Rescue crews continued to dig by hand Friday through the snow and debris in the search for some 15 people still believed trapped inside the remote Italian mountain resort flattened by the huge avalanche following a series of strong earthquakes. 

Italian media first got wind of the survivors on Friday just as hopes had started to dim of finding anyone alive in the badly damaged buliding.

The search and rescue operation after Wednesday’s avalanche has been hampered by snow blocking the only road to the Hotel Rigopiano and fears of triggering a fresh avalanche.

A convoy of rescue vehicles made slow progress to the hotel, blocked by snow piled 10 feet high in some places, fallen trees and rocks. By late Thursday, only 25 vehicles had arrived, along with 135 rescue workers, and civil protection authorities said part of the night was spent trying to widen the road.

The first rescue teams had arrived on skis early Thursday, and firefighters were dropped in by helicopter. Snowmobiles were also being mobilized.

Two people escaped the devastation at the Hotel Rigopiano in the quake-stricken mountains of central Italy and called for help. But it took hours for responders to arrive at the remote hotel, located about 30 miles from the coastal city of Pescara, at an altitude of about 3,940 feet.

Days of heavy snowfall had knocked out electricity and phone lines in many central Italian towns and hamlets, and the hotel phones went down early Wednesday, just as the first of four powerful earthquakes struck the region.

It wasn’t clear if the quakes triggered the avalanche. But emergency responders said the force of the massive snow slide collapsed a wing of the hotel that faced the mountain and rotated another off its foundation, pushing it downhill.

“The situation is catastrophic,” said Marshall Lorenzo Gagliardi of the Alpine rescue service, who was among the first at the scene. “The mountain-facing side is completely destroyed and buried by snow: the kitchen, hotel rooms, hall.”

One of the survivors reported that the guests had all checked out and were waiting for the road to be cleared to be able to leave. The snow plow scheduled for midafternoon never arrived, and the avalanche hit sometime around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Prosecutors have opened a manslaughter investigation in the tragedy, and among the hypotheses being pursued is whether the avalanche threat wasn’t taken seriously enough, according to Italian media.

Farindola Mayor Ilario Lacchetta estimated that more than 30 people were unaccounted for: the hotel had 24 guests, four of them children, and 12 employees were onsite.

An Alpine rescue team was the first to arrive on cross-country skis after a four-mile, two-hour journey, finding Giampaolo Parete, a guest who escaped the avalanche when he went to his car to get something, and Fabio Salzetta, a hotel maintenance worker, in a car in the resort’s parking lot.

There were no other signs of life.

“Unfortunately we haven’t had any positive signs since the morning,” firefighter spokesman Luca Cari told state-run RAI television.

Parete, whose wife and two children remain among the missing, was taken to a hospital while Salzetta stayed behind with rescuers to help identify where guests might be buried and how crews could enter the buildings, rescuers said.

The mountainous region of central Italy has been struck by a series of quakes since August that destroyed homes and historic centers in dozens of towns and hamlets. A deadly quake in August killed nearly 300. No one died in strong aftershocks in October, largely because population centers had already been evacuated.