Kids among many feared dead in Italy avalanche

The national civil protection agency said the Hotel Rigopiano had suffered a direct hit by a two-metre high wall of snow on Thursday. Emergency services were struggling to get ambulances and excavation equipment to the remote site with the first snow plough only arriving just before midday.

Italian broadcasters showed images of piles of masonry and rubble inside the hotel, which had been moved some ten metres from its original location by the force of the snow. Local officials confirmed that one body had been recovered from the ruins and that two guests who were not inside when the avalanche struck had been saved.

Civil protection chief Fabrizio Curcio said there had been around 30 guests and staff at the small ski hotel on the eastern lower slopes of the Gran Sasso mountain when the first of four powerful tremors rattled the region on Wednesday morning.

Francesco Provolo, the head of the Pescara province where the disaster occurred, said there had been around 20 people staying at the hotel, including “several children” along with seven or eight staff. Specialist mountain police who had reached the hotel on skis or by helicopter overnight had begun trying to move the rubble with spades.