Italy earthquake: Death toll at least 250 and expected to rise

With the death toll in the central Italian earthquake now having reached at least 250, rescue workers are still searching for survivors across the four afflicted central regions of Lazio, Umbria, L'Abruzzo and Le Marche.

Given the devastation wreaked by the quake, rescue services expect the death toll to continue to rise.

In the town of Amatrice, one of the hardest hit of all the centres, there are still fears for the lives of 10 or more missing guests from the little Hotel Roma.

Here, as in Amatrice itself, things might have been worse since the proprietors managed to evacuate the majority of the hotel’s 70 plus guests.

Driving away from Amatrice with local man Giovanni last night, he pointed out that, bad as it was, it could have been worse since this little village high in the hills north of L’Aquila is normally visited by up to 30,000 people for its annual “Sagra degli Spaghetti all’Amatriciana”.

This is a village festival which celebrates the fact that Amatrice is the spiritual home of that most typical of Roman pasta dishes, pasta all’amatriciana.

The 50th Sagra was due to be held next Saturday and Sunday.

Horrific devastation

Not surprisingly, this year’s event has now been cancelled. For one thing, such is the horrific devastation in Amatrice that there would be nowhere to stage the event.

Rather than celebrating local traditions, people around here will be spending the coming days mouring their loved ones and burying their family dead.

Even as the rescue work goes on, the area around Amatrice continues to be hit by frightening aftershocks.

The fear here is that these after tremors, even if they are not as strong as the tremor which struck at 3.36 yesterday morning, could still bring down buildings damaged by the original quake.

Sitting in the centre of Amatrice last night, one such after tremor was strong enough to shake me off my plastic chair. The tremor is a bit like the feeling you sometimes get when a heavy lorry rattles past your window.

The problem is that the tremor does not strike at window level, rather it seems to growl from somewhere deep beneath your feet.

Worse still, some seismologists suggest that it is still a possibility that one of these aftershocks will be even stronger than that of yesterday morning.

Anxious officials

When it struck last night, that particular tremor prompted a deal of agitation amongst the Civil Protection force with anxious officials hurriedly moving bystanders on down the road.

“Move on, get out of here, any of these buildings around us could fall on top of you. Please move on, move to edge of the town, please” says the official to the gathering of bystanders, helpers and reporters.

Even this morning, your correspondent woke up at 5.15am in his hotel bedroom to the by now familiar but never reassuring sensation that the earth was moving - which was exactly what it was doing. Last night, more than 300 aftershocks were registered across the four region struck by this quake.

Sense of solidarity

Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi correctly said yesterday that in times of crisis and tragedy like this, "Italians show their best face" through a national sense of solidarity. He is absolutely right.

Not only has a vast rescue machine swung into action but the country is awash with charitable initiatives aimed at raising funds for the reconstruction, the survivors and the relatives of victims.

For example, one national association of restaurateurs has promoted an initiative whereby every time a customer orders a plate of pasta all’amatriciana, they will contribute €2 to the reconstruction fund. At this stage, it is impossible to estimate the costs of that reconstruction.

What some experts do claim, however, is that if Italy were magically able to make every building in the country seismic proof, the cost would be something like €4 billion annually for the next 20 years.

On top of that, the same experts resignedly admit that there is little anyone can do to accurately predict an earthquake.

People are leaving this area in droves. Traffic on the road to Rome is overwhelmingly going in just one direction, away from the earthquake zone.

Many people simply do not feel safe anymore. You can understand just why.