Rescuers say they are “fighting against time” five days after the avalanche which engulfed a mountain hotel in Abruzzo, central Italy.
There is hope people may have survived in air pockets as the search for 23 missing goes on. Six died but nine survived, including four children. Rescuers using shovels and saws are considering whether to start using heavy equipment on the buried ruins.
Details have emerged of the situation at the hotel just before the avalanche.
The manager, Bruno Di Tommaso, told officials in an email shortly before the disaster on Wednesday that his guests were terrified by multiple earthquakes that day, and were prevented from leaving by snowdrifts. However, there was no mention of a potential avalanche. Italian officials have since confirmed that the area was not considered to be at risk of such an event.
The local authorities say a snowplough was due to begin work on the road to the hotel on Wednesday evening but the avalanche struck in the late afternoon.
Shafts dug Luca Cari, a spokesman for the firefighters, said the “operational hypothesis” was that the snow might not have reached all parts of the hotel, and air pockets might still exist.
“We are fighting against time,” he told Sky TG24. Shafts have been dug into the snow and concrete to allow rescuers access, while electronic probes are being used to search inside for the slightest noise that might be a sign of life.
Rescue crews have taken precautions to secure themselves in case of a new avalanche, with escape routes planned out and tracking devices issued to each member, the Associated Press reports. Radar has been set up to give early warning of any new slide, AFP news agency reports.
The avalanche – weighing some 120,000 tonnes – hit the luxury hotel with a speed of about 100km/h (60mph). Some of the firefighters are taking inspiration from earlier rescues.
One, Marco Filabozzi, said: “We did three earthquakes: Amatrice [24 August 2016], Camerino [26 October] and Norcia [31 October]. We only found dead people.
“When we broke that wooden panel and saw those three children huddled against each other, we looked at each other and we suddenly understood: those angels erased all the dead for us.”
‘We never stopped’
In his email, Mr Di Tommaso, the hotel manager, warned the authorities in Pescara province, the local police chief and the mayor of a nearby village, Farindola, that the situation was “worrying”.
He asked them to prepare to intervene, saying stranded guests terrified by the earthquakes were preparing to spend the night in their cars. The diesel supply for the electricity generator would run out the next day, and the bad weather had cut off the phone network, he added.
Italian media say the Pescara authorities already knew at 07:00 (06:00 GMT) on Wednesday that a special, high-powered snowplough would be needed to unblock the road to the hotel. The avalanche, triggered by the earthquakes, struck at about 17:00 later that day.
The daily Il Messaggero says Pescara President Antonio Di Marco saw the email at 14:00.
“Nobody underestimated the email,” he said, explaining that he had assured the hotel owner’s sister that a special snowplough – a “turbina” – would be on its way to unblock the road by that evening.
“For me it is an irrelevant email – we never stopped,” he said. Italy has seen a wave of damaging quakes in recent months. The Apennines region saw three magnitude six tremors between August and October.
Italy’s complex tectonics mean that the Apennines are subject to extension, or “pull-apart”, which works at a rate of 3mm per year. The geological stress is spread across a number of fault lines in the mountain ranges.
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