Romanians among the victims of Italy earthquake
The death toll of the earthquake that hit central Italy rises by the hour.
Corina Cristea, 25.08.2016, 12:59
Thousands of rescuers are searching through the rubble, hoping to find survivors following an earthquake late on Tuesday night in a mountainous region in central Italy, north-east of Rome. The quake, which measured 6 degrees on the Richter scale and took place at a depth of 4 km, destroyed most of the towns of Amatrice, Accumoli and Pescara del Tronto. “Everything collapsed in a minute”, one local described the ordeal. The authorities say hundreds of people have been killed or injured. Many Romanians live in the region, and some are among the victims, according to the Foreign Ministry in Bucharest.
A Romanian consular team from Bologna has been sent to the affected areas and is in permanent contact with the Italian authorities. Two other teams, from the Romanian Embassy and the Consular Section in Rome, are prepared to assist Romanian citizens who have lost their identity papers, need temporary travel documents or other emergency consular services. On the ground, rescuers are in a race against the clock to find survivors, searching all through the night and managing to find people still alive after having been trapped for tens of hours, including a 9-month-old toddler.
TV stations also report dramatic cases with dead children being pulled from the ruins, while their parents have survived. The earthquake was followed by hundreds of aftershocks, with thousands of people leaving the area, including holidaymakers. Powerful aftershocks are still expected over the next few days, some just as strong as the initial quake, an Italian publication has quoted an important European quake expert as saying. The latter recalled that seven years ago, two powerful quakes occurred in the area within a few days of each other and that the highest number of victims was reported after the second quake because many people went into the buildings that were still standing after the first quake, with no prior assessment of their resistance structure.
In Bucharest, president Klaus Iohannis sent a message of condolence to his Italian counterpart Sergio Mattarella, expressing solidarity with the Italian people. Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos said: “Our thoughts go out to the people who have been affected, Romanians and Italians alike, as well as to those making efforts to rescue and assist the victims.”
(Translated by Cristina Mateescu)
