’Quake toll climbs to 3000 as rescuers continue to work

Press, 27 November 1980, Page 8

’Quake toll climbs to 3000 as rescuers continue to work

NZPA Naples Bleary-eyed soldiers, policemen, and fire-fighters, helped grieving villagers dig ■out the living and dead yes-, i terday from ruins left by the southern Italian earthquake, estimated to have killed more than 3000 and left, 200,000 homeless. Rescue teams worked; slowly because they did not; have enough bulldozers or, other equipment, frustrating!: kcal residents who wanted; to know the fate of the hun-j dreds of missing. ; “We can’t move this away in three years unless we get machines to do it,” a doctor! said in Laviano as he surveyed a 4m-high pile of debris where a three-storey building once stood. i Local officials estimated that they may find 700 bodies when all the rubble is cleared in Laviano, 76km east of Salerno. Rescuers freed 90-year-oid Donata Zarillo in Balvano after she spent 30 hours in her shattered kitchen. “We heard her beating a piece of wood against the wall,” Giancarlo Rocchi, a! fireman, said. “We stopped still and the sound came again. We dug slowly (to avoid causing a collapse) and broke a hole in the wail. She was inside, poor thing, and we had a hard time convincing her it was okay to come out.” Many dead were still uncounted in remote villages as the military command-es-

timated the toll at 3132. The parish priest in Sant’- < Angelo Dei Lombardi, in Avellino province, said he believes 1500 corpses lie beneath the ruins. The Interior Ministry said , rescuers have recovered ;2400 bodies and 200,000 are | ; homeless, i It was Italy's most deadly earthquake since the 1915 i I tremor that killed 30,000 in i the central region of Avez- : izano. I ; Alda Corbelli, aged 27, I was trapped with thej< ;corpses of her three children-; for 45 hours in her ruined 11 I home in the city of Avellino.,‘l (She suffered a crushed leg. but doctors expected her to live. Minutes before she was;, found, her husband asked: d’ggers to look for a photo-; graph of his wife and chil-;< dren in the rubble. “Help me so I won’t be|, left alone without anything | to remember my family,” he; said. ! ( Fallen stones and col-|. lapsed bridges blocked many!, roads, but an Interior Min- ' istry official said relief I. teams had arrived at every j: community in the stricken] region by Tuesday evening:' (local time). The tremor l] struck on Sunday evening. Powerful aftershocks ’ struck the area on Tuesday,, collapsing several buildings it in the small town of Palerno-p poli, Calitri, and Cairano. The new tremors panicked;] hundreds of thousands of i survivors bivouacking in,'l

parks, beaches, and other open spaces. The tremors also triggered a new revolt in Naples’ top security jail where three prisoners were killed after a mass escape attempt ended in. fierce fighting inside the prison on Sunday. “We have offered them school buildings, bt.\ they don’t want to go in with anything over their heads.” a Salerno health official. Antonio Ercolano said. “It is understandable because they were so shocked and frightened. But we do inot want this thing to lead Jto another mystery disease.” The "mystery” disease, which doctors said was caused by unsanitary conditions. killed 76 babies in j Naples in 1978. Health aui thorities feared typhus or ; cholera might spread because of unclean drinking ; .vater. ] Pope John Paul II toured itwo hospitals in the earthquake 'zone on Tuesday, offering comfort to the injured land other survivors. “I felt the obligation of 'heart and conscience to be ! here with you in your suf-j ■fering at least for a little; while,” the Pope said as he ’eft Nuovo San Carlo hospi-; til in Potenza. Touring the quake zone ifor a second day Tuesday.] i President Sandro Pertini, 'wore a grim expression as, ihe visited the ruined build-i lings of Sant’Angelo Dei; Lombardi.