Firefighters in Italy freed a seven-month-old baby and his older brother from rubble early yesterday following a magnitude 4.0 quake on the resort island of Ischia off Naples, and rescuers were working on helping a third brother who remained trapped.
At least one person — an elderly woman who was inside a church that collapsed — was killed in the quake that struck just before 9pm on Monday. Another 39 were injured and some 2,600 were left homeless.
Video released from the firefighting service showed rescuers passing the baby, who was wearing a white jumpsuit and appearing alert, out of the collapsed structure in hardest-hit Casamicciola at about 4am.
Photo: AP
News Agency ANSA said cries of joy went up in the crowd and the boys’ mother ran to take him.
One of the baby’s brothers was rescued about seven hours later, and quickly loaded onto a stretcher and into an ambulance.
A firefighter photo showed the boy, identified as Mattias, being pulled out of the rubble in just his underwear covered with cement dust. Firefighters said on Twitter that they had reached the other boy, named Ciro, and were working on extracting him.
The children’s father told RAI state television that boys were in a bedroom when the quake struck, while he and his wife were elsewhere in the house. The mother, who Italian media say is heavily pregnant, managed to escape through a window while rescuers helped the father.
Firefighter spokesman Luca Cari said they maintained voice contact with the two boys during the complex rescue operation to create an opening through the collapsed ceiling. The boys had been given bottles of water and a flashlight.
“We are in touch with both of the boys. We hear their voices and we are making ours heard to keep them calm,” Cari was quoted by ANSA as saying.
The quake hit during the height of the tourist season, and Italian television showed many visitors taking refuge in parks following the tremor. Authorities began organizing ferries to bring tourists back to the mainland early yesterday.
Images from the quake zone show many buildings collapsed into rubble, while others showed signs of structural damage with deep cracks in exterior walls. Cars were overturned.
The extent of the damage for a relatively light quake raised questions about the quality of construction on the island in the seismically active area off Naples and the active volcano, and the prevalence of illegally built structures.
Fabrizio Pistolesi, the head of Italy’s national architecture advisory board, told SKY that many buildings on the island were built before seismic codes were adopted.
He also cited the high incidence of illegal construction on Ischia and generally in the Campagna region that includes both the resort island and Naples.
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