Father digs with his hands to find daughter in quake rubble
Friends and relatives grieve during the funeral of earthquake victim Carmelina Iovine (22) in the town of Raiano
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THE father of a student who survived 42 hours buried in rubble after the earthquake in Italy described how he dug with his hands to try to save his daughter.
As the search for survivors struggled amid continuing aftershocks, Luigi Calesini said that he had rushed to L'Aquila, where his daughter Eleanora is a student of cinema, the moment he heard news of the disaster.
“I joined the rescue teams in the street where she lived,” he said at the hospital where Mss Calesini, who uses a hearing aid, was taken. “I was desperate. I dug with my bare hands. Then there were signs of life and I knew it was her.”
He said that his joy had turned to anxiety when it emerged that her right leg and left hand had been crushed, creating blood circulation problems. Ms Calesini is under sedation and doctors said that the next 24 hours would be crucial for her.
Mr Calesini said he was optimistic that she would make a full recovery. He said that the five-storey block where his daughter lived had “collapsed like the layers of a sandwich”, with Ms Calesini falling into the basement garage.
When rescue workers found her she was still in her pyjamas. With tears in her eyes she asked: “Where are mamma and papa?”” smiling as she recognised her father. Ms Calesini also asked after her best friend, Enza, who is feared dead. Gennaro Di Cesare, an officer from the Abruzzo provincial police force who took part in the rescue, said that Ms Calesini had been trapped between two pillars of reinforced concrete, which had protected her from the collapsing walls. He praised the fire brigade for its determination to find her.
Firefighters and civil protection workers have come to L'Aquila from as far afield as Bergamo and Venice to help in the search.
The rescue effort has become desperate as the chances of finding more people alive diminishes.
So far 150 survivors have been pulled from the rubble. Marta Valente, a 24-year-old student from Teramo, was rescued 20 hours after the earthquake.
She was found in her bed. A concrete beam had crashed to within a fraction of her head.
A 98-year-old woman who was pulled alive from rubble in L'Aquila told rescuers that she spent the time knitting while she waited to be saved.
At least 250 bodies have been taken to a makeshift mortuary at a school for the Italian Finance Police outside L'Aquila.
Many of the victims were students at the university. A firefighter from the port of Pescara, who came to help rescue efforts, collapsed in tears after unearthing the body of his stepdaughter who was studying there.
Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister, thanked the rescue teams, saying that they were facing risks because of the aftershocks.
Mr Berlusconi, who had rejected foreign aid initially, said that Italy would gladly accept the support offered by US President Obama and would devote it to preserving the cultural and artistic heritage in the region.(©The Times, London)
- Richard Owen in L'Aquila
