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At least 120 killed as quake flattens towns in central Italy

By Steve Scherer

ACCUMOLI, Italy (Reuters) – An earthquake flattened towns in central Italy in the early hours of Wednesday, killing at least 120 people and burying some alive in their sleep, with volunteers and firefighters racing to free those trapped under mounds of rubble as darkness fell.

The quake razed mountain homes and buckled roads in a cluster of communities some 140 km (85 miles) east of Rome. It was powerful enough to be felt in Bologna to the north and Naples to the south, each more than 220 km from the epicenter.

“I was blown away by what I saw. We haven’t stopped digging all day,” said Marcello di Marco, 34, a farmer who traveled from the town of Narni some 100 km away to help with emergency services’ rescue efforts in the hamlet of Pescara del Tronto.

In the nearby village of Accumoli, a family of four, including two boys aged 8 months and 9 years, were buried when their house imploded.

As rescue workers carried away the body of the infant, carefully covered by a small blanket, the children’s grandmother blamed God: “He took them all at once,” she wailed.

The army was mobilized to help with special heavy equipment and the Treasury released 235 million euros ($265 million) of emergency funds. At the Vatican, Pope Francis dispatched part of the Holy See’s tiny firefighting force to help in the rescue.

Rescue workers used helicopters to pluck survivors to safety in more isolated villages cut off by landslides and rubble.

Aerial photographs showed whole areas of Amatrice, last year voted one of Italy’s most beautiful historic towns, flattened by the 6.2 magnitude quake. Many of those killed or missing were visitors.

“It’s all young people here, it’s holiday season, the town festival was to have been held the day after tomorrow so lots of people came for that,” said Amatrice resident Giancarlo, sitting in the road wearing just his underwear.

“It’s terrible, I’m 65 years old and I have never experienced anything like this, small tremors, yes, but nothing this big. This is a catastrophe,” he said.

Scores of people are believed unaccounted for, with the presence of the holidaymakers making it difficult to tally.

Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who gave the latest toll figure after visiting the area, called for national unity.

“We Italians are very good at arguing and being polemical but now let’s stand in solidarity and pride alongside those who are rescuing others,” he said. “Today is a day for tears. Tomorrow we can talk of reconstruction.”

VOICES UNDER THE RUBBLE

Patients at the badly damaged hospital in Amatrice were moved into the streets and a field hospital was set up.

“Three quarters of the town is not there anymore,” Amatrice mayor Sergio Pirozzi told state broadcaster RAI. “The aim now is to save as many lives as possible. There are voices under the rubble, we have to save the people there.”

Accumoli’s mayor, Stefano Petrucci, said some 2,500 people were left homeless in the local community of 17 hamlets.

Residents responding to wails muffled by tonnes of bricks and mortar sifted through with their bare hands before emergency services arrived with earth-moving equipment and sniffer dogs. Wide cracks had appeared like open wounds on the buildings that were still standing.

The national Civil Protection Department said some survivors would be put up elsewhere in central Italy, while others would be housed in tents that were being dispatched to the area.

Most of the damage was in the Lazio and Marche regions, with Lazio taking the brunt of the damage and the biggest toll. Neighboring Umbria was also affected. All three regions are dotted with centuries-old buildings susceptible to earthquakes.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake struck near the Umbrian city of Norcia. Italy’s earthquake institute INGV registered it at 6.0 and put the epicenter further south, closer to Accumoli and Amatrice.

It was relatively shallow at 4 km below the earth’s surface.

INGV reported 150 aftershocks in the 12 hours following the initial quake, the strongest measuring 5.5.

Residents of Rome were woken by the tremors, which rattled furniture, swayed lights and set off car alarms in most of central Italy.

“It was so strong. It seemed the bed was walking across the room by itself with us on it,” Lina Mercantini of Ceselli, Umbria, about 75 km away from the hardest hit area, told Reuters.

Italy sits on two fault lines, making it one of the most seismically active countries in Europe.

The last major earthquake to hit the country struck the central city of L’Aquila in 2009, killing more than 300 people.

The most deadly since the start of the 20th century came in 1908, when an earthquake followed by a tsunami killed an estimated 80,000 people in the southern regions of Reggio Calabria and Sicily.

(Additional reporting by Philip Pullella, Gavin Jones, Stephen Jewkes, Eleanor Biles and Giulia Segreti; Writing by Crispian Balmer and Philip Pullella; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Powerful earthquake in Italy overnight, killing at least 73, thousands homeless

A man is carried away after having been rescued alive from the ruins following an earthquake in Amatrice

By Steve Scherer

ACCUMOLI, Italy (Reuters) – A powerful earthquake devastated a string of mountainous towns in central Italy on Wednesday, trapping residents under piles of rubble, killing at least 73 people and leaving thousands homeless.

The quake struck in the early hours of the morning when most residents were asleep, razing homes and buckling roads in a cluster of communities some 140 km (85 miles) east of Rome.

A family of four, including two boys aged 8 months and 9 years, were buried when their house in Accumoli imploded.

As rescue workers carried away the body of the infant, carefully covered by a small blanket, the children’s grandmother blamed God: “He took them all at once,” she wailed.

The army was mobilized to help with special heavy equipment and the treasury released 235 million euros ($265 million) of emergency funds. At the Vatican, Pope Francis canceled part of his general audience to pray for the victims.

Aerial photographs showed whole areas of Amatrice, voted last year as one of Italy’s most beautiful historic towns, flattened by the 6.2 magnitude quake.

“It’s terrible, I’m 65-years-old and I have never experienced anything like this, small tremors, yes, but nothing this big. This is a catastrophe,” he said.

Accumoli mayor Stefano Petrucci said some 2,500 were left homeless in the local community, which is made up of 17 hamlets.

Residents responding to wails muffled by tonnes of bricks and mortar sifted through the rubble with their bare hands before emergency services arrived with earth-moving equipment and sniffer dogs. Wide cracks had appeared like open wounds on the buildings that were still standing.

The national Civil Protection Department said some survivors would be put up elsewhere in central Italy, while others would be housed in tents that were being dispatched to the area.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said he would visit the disaster area later in the day: “No one will be left alone, no family, no community, no neighborhood. We must get down to work .. to restore hope to this area which has been so badly hit,” he said in a brief televised address.

The quake hit during the summer when the area, usually sparsely populated, hosts large numbers of holidaymakers.

A spokeswoman for the civil protection department, Immacolata Postiglione, said the dead were in Amatrice, Accumoli and other villages including Pescara del Tronto and Arquata del Tronto. She put the initial death toll at 73, but said rescue teams had only just reached some stricken areas.

The earthquake caused damage in three regions — Umbria, Lazio and Marche — and was felt as far away as the southern Italian port city of Naples.

DISAPPEARING IN DUST

The hospital in Amatrice was among the buildings that were badly damaged, and patients were moved into the streets.

RAI reported that two Afghan girls, believed to be asylum-seekers, were also missing in the town.

The U.S. Geological Survey, which measured the quake at 6.2 magnitude, said it struck near the Umbrian city of Norcia, while Italy’s earthquake institute INGV registered it at 6.0 and put the epicenter further south, closer to Accumoli and Amatrice.

The damage was made more severe because the epicenter was at a relatively shallow 4 km below the surface of the earth. Residents of Rome were woken by the tremors, which rattled furniture, swayed lights and set off car alarms in most of central Italy.

“It was so strong. It seemed the bed was walking across the room by itself with us on it,” Lina Mercantini of Ceselli, Umbria, about 75 km away from the hardest hit area, told Reuters. Olga Urbani, in the nearby town of Scheggino, said: “Dear God it was awful. The walls creaked and all the books fell off the shelves.”

INGV reported 60 aftershocks in the four hours following the initial quake, the strongest measuring 5.5.

Italy sits on two fault lines, making it one of the most seismically active countries in Europe.

The last major earthquake to hit the country struck the central city of L’Aquila in 2009, killing more than 300 people.

The most deadly since the start of the 20th century came in 1908, when an earthquake followed by a tsunami killed an estimated 80,000 people in the southern regions of Reggio Calabria and Sicily.

($1 = 0.8868 euros)

(Writing by Crispian Balmer and Philip Pullella, reporting by Steve Scherer, Philip Pullella, Stephen Jewkes, Eleanor Biles and Giulia Segreti.; Editing by Nick Macfie, Robert Birsel and Peter Graff)

Parents who insist vegan diet for children may risk jail in Italy

Italy's member of parliament and PDL party Savino and Prime Minister Berlusconi attend debate in the upper house of Parliament in Rome

By Philip Pullella

ROME (Reuters) – If parliamentarian Elvira Savino has her way, Italian parents who insist on a vegan diet for their children will risk up to four years in jail.

Savino, from the conservative Forza Italia party, has put forward a law that would hold parents legally responsible for feeding their children on “a diet devoid of elements essential for healthy and balanced growth”, according to its text.

“I have nothing against vegans or veganism as long as it is a free choice by adults,” she told Reuters in a telephone interview on Wednesday, days after she presented the proposed law in the lower house Chamber of Deputies.

“I just find it absurd that some parents are allowed to impose their will on children in an almost fanatical, religious way, often without proper scientific knowledge or medical consultation,” she said.

“Do-it-yourself on these matters terrorizes me.”

Some pediatricians advise against feeding children on a vegan diet, which they say can lack sufficient nutrition.

Vegetarians do not eat meat, fish, or poultry and vegans also do not eat animal products such as eggs and dairy foods.

The law proposes jail sentences of a year for raising a child on a vegan diet, up to four years if the child develops a permanent health problem and up to seven years if the child dies as a result.

It would apply to children under 16 and penalties would increase by a year if the child is under three.

Savino, 39, who has a seven-year-old son and who eats meat “but not too much”, said she proposed the law after being shocked by several recent incidents in Italy.

Last month in the northern city of Milan, doctors determined that a one-year-old boy who was taken to a hospital had the weight of a three-month-old because of a vegan diet.

In 2015, an Italian court ordered a divorced mother to stop raising her 12-year-old son on a vegan diet after the boy’s father filed a complaint that it was stunting his growth.

“If even only one child ends up in a hospital because of this behavior, I feel we have to protect them all,” said Savino, noting that she believes pediatricians should be obliged to report vegan parents to authorities just as they would if they noticed signs of physical abuse on a child.

The draft will be discussed by parliamentary committees before it goes to the floor for debate. That is expected this year.

(Editing by Louise Ireland)

Tempers flare as temperatures soar at Rome’s migrant center

Migrants queue for food at a makeshift camp in Via Cupa (Gloomy Street) in downtown Rome, Italy,

By Steve Scherer

ROME (Reuters) – Tempers are flaring between increasingly frustrated residents and boat migrants mostly from Africa using a well-known transit camp in central Rome as temperatures soar this summer.

Italy is taking in thousands of boat migrants every week for a third year in a row, and friction is common between them and those who live along the path many take on their journey toward northern Europe.

Set up by volunteers, the Baobab center, by Rome’s Tiburtina train station, was shut down by police in December in the wake of the Paris attacks and because the European Union wants Italy to stop migrants from moving on, not help them to do so.

But Baobab volunteers quickly set up a camp on the street in front of the old shelter with tents and chemical toilets, serving three meals a day, and migrants have flocked there in their thousands.

“We can’t open our windows because of the stench,” said Valeria, who lives with her six-year-old son and husband next to the camp in Via Cupa – Gloomy Street in English.

“The chemical toilets are never cleaned and dirty water leaks onto the street. It’s inhumane for them and for us.”

Baobab organizers estimate 40,000 have come through in the past year. Last week, about 300 men, women, children and teenage boys slept on mattresses laid out on the road, and the numbers are expected to rise as the summer wears on.

On one afternoon last week, a mother bathed her baby in a plastic tub, young men played table football, and women braided each other’s hair on a wicker couch – all in under the hot sun.

Residents and Baobab volunteers alike have been calling on Rome’s city government to provide a more suitable location, but after more than seven months none has been found.

The administration of Rome’s new mayor Virginia Raggi, elected in June, is working with institutions and humanitarian groups to come up with a plan by Aug. 15 to get the migrants off the road and into a more adequate location, the city’s social affairs office said in a statement.

Italy has been on the front line of Europe’s immigration crisis, taking in more than 420,000 boat migrants since the start of 2014, official figures show.

The state provides shelter to some 140,000 asylum seekers – seven times more than it did in 2013 – in centers up and down the Italian peninsula.

POST-ATTACK FEARS

Volunteers argue that shelters for migrants in transit are needed not only for humanitarian reasons, but also to keep them out of the hands of criminal people smugglers.

During one afternoon in late July, two Baobab volunteers escorted four young Eritreans to buy bus tickets for Milan. Their final destinations were Germany, Norway and Holland.

“Had we not helped them, they could have fallen prey to people smugglers,” said Sergio, a retired civil servant and Baobab volunteer.

Residents and businesses are also worried about security.

At the end of July, in the wake of violent attacks in Europe that killed hundreds of people, an insurance office that employs 19 people relocated to another part of Rome from Gloomy Street, saying both clients and employees no longer felt safe there.

“Everyday there are attacks around Europe,” said Gianluca Fasano, owner of the insurance office. “We have no idea who is staying there. We hope they’re all good people, but we don’t know.”

Eritrean, Somali and Sudanese are the most common nationalities found at Baobab because they often have family members already living in other countries. Typically they stay no longer than two or three days before moving on.

Baobab is fully operated by volunteers – doctors, retired civil servants, designers and others – and funded by donations. Each week its Facebook page asks for specific items, such as small-size men’s shoes or Ibuprofen. Someone donated a car battery so migrants can charge their phones.

“We’re the first to say that the situation is inadequate,” said Francesca Del Giudice, a Baobab founder. “We don’t think it’s a dignified shelter for them. We want to take them off the street; instead they’re sleeping on the street.”

(Editing by Louise Ireland)

Italy would ‘positively consider’ U.S. request to use airbases for Libya strikes

A Danish F-16 Fighting Falcon takes off from the tarmac of the Sigonella NATO Airbase on the southern Italian island of Sicily, Italy

ROME (Reuters) – Italy signaled it would most likely allow the use of its airbases and airspace for strikes against Islamic State militants in Libya if the United States asks, Defence Minister Roberta Pinotti said on Wednesday.

“The government is ready to consider positively a request to use airbases and national airspace, and support the operation, if it is believed that it would lead to a more rapid and effective conclusion of the ongoing action,” Pinotti said in testimony to the lower house of parliament.

U.S. planes began bombing Islamic State targets in Libya on Monday at the request of the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli to help push militants from their former stronghold of Sirte.

(Reporting by Steve Scherer and Stefano Bernabei, editing by Isla Binnie)

Bodies found off coast of Libya as migrant toll climbs: IOM

GENEVA (Reuters) – The bodies of 120 migrants believed to have been trying to reach Italy by boat from Libya have been found off the Libyan coast over the past 10 days, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday.

“We are getting this information from Libyan authorities that we are collaborating with,” said IOM spokesman Joel Millman. The bodies had been discovered near Sabratha and had not come from previously known shipwrecks in the Mediterranean.

Mainly African migrants are taking often unseaworthy boats from Libya to Italy, gateway to Europe. Nearly 8,000 were rescued at sea between Friday to Monday on that central Mediterranean route, Millman told a briefing.

It is a longer and more perilous journey than that from Turkey to Greece, largely shut down since a deal was struck between the European Union and Turkey in March, although 174 migrants did make it by sea to Greece over the weekend, IOM said.

More than 257,000 migrants and refugees have already entered Europe by sea this year through July 27, and for the third straight year, at least 3,000 others have died, the agency said.

A total of 4,027 migrants or refugees have perished worldwide so far this year, three-quarters of them in the Mediterranean, Millman said.

The figures represents a 35 percent increase on the global toll during the first seven months of 2015, he said.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Italy rescues over 3,300 migrants over weekend

Migrants disembark from a vessel of ONG Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) in the Sicilian harbour of Augusta

MILAN (Reuters) – Italian coastguard and navy ships rescued over 3,300 migrants in 26 separate operations in the Mediterranean over the weekend, a spokesperson for the Italian navy told Reuters on Sunday.

The people were picked up from 25 dinghies and one boat, all north of the Libyan coast, the Coast Guard said in a separate statement.

The navy spokesperson said one adult was found dead and another four injured migrants were transported by helicopter to the nearest hospital, on the island of Lampedusa.

Italy is on the front line of Europe’s worst immigration crisis since World War Two, with little sign of any slowdown in the flow of people coming from North Africa.

About 60,000 boat migrants have been brought to Italy so far this year, according to the Interior Ministry.

On Friday ship crews rescued more than 2,000 people from overcrowded boats.

Improved weather conditions in the Mediterranean encourage more migrants and their human smugglers to attempt the crossing despite the dangers involved. More than 3,700 migrants died in the Mediterranean last year, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

(Reporting by Giulia Segreti; Editing by Digby Lidstone)

Photograph captures week of tragedy in Mediterranean

A German rescuer from the humanitarian organisation Sea-Watch holds drowned migrant baby of the Libyan cost

By Steve Scherer

ROME (Reuters) – A photograph of a drowned migrant baby in the arms of a German rescuer was distributed on Monday by a humanitarian organization aiming to persuade European authorities to ensure safe passage to migrants, after hundreds are feared to have drowned in the Mediterranean last week.

The baby, who appears to be no more than a year old, was pulled from the sea on Friday after the capsizing of a wooden boat. Forty-five bodies arrived in the southern Italian port of Reggio Calabria on Sunday aboard an Italian navy ship, which picked up 135 survivors from the same incident.

German humanitarian organization Sea-Watch, operating a rescue boat in the sea between Libya and Italy, distributed the picture taken by a media production company on board and which showed a rescuer cradling the child like a sleeping baby.

In an email, the rescuer, who gave his name as Martin but did not want his family name published, said he had spotted the baby in the water “like a doll, arms outstretched”.

“I took hold of the forearm of the baby and pulled the light body protectively into my arms at once, as if it were still alive … It held out its arms with tiny fingers into the air, the sun shone into its bright, friendly but motionless eyes.”

The rescuer, a father of three and by profession a music therapist, added: “I began to sing to comfort myself and to give some kind of expression to this incomprehensible, heart-rending moment. Just six hours ago this child was alive.”

Like the photograph of the three-year-old Syrian boy Aylan lying lifeless on a Turkish beach last year, the image puts a human face on the more than 8,000 people who have died in the Mediterranean since the start of 2014.

Little is known about the child, who according to Sea-Watch was immediately handed over to the Italian navy. Rescuers could not confirm whether the partially clothed infant was a boy or a girl and it is not known whether the child’s mother or father are among the survivors.

Sea-Watch collected about 25 other bodies, including another child, according to testimony from the crew seen by Reuters. The Sea-Watch team said it unanimously decided to publish the photo.

“In the wake of the disastrous events it becomes obvious to the organizations on the ground that the calls by EU politicians to avoid further death at sea sum up to nothing more than lip service,” Sea-Watch said in a statement in English distributed along with the photograph.

“If we do not want to see such pictures we have to stop producing them,” Sea-Watch said, calling for Europe to allow migrants safe and legal passage as a way of shutting down people smuggling and further tragedies.

At least 700 migrants may have died at sea this past week in the busiest week of migrant crossings from Libya towards Italy this year, the UN Refugee agency said on Sunday.

The boat carrying the baby left the shores of Libya near Sabratha late on Thursday, and then began to take on water, according to accounts by survivors collected by Save the Children on Sunday. Hundreds were on board when it capsized, the survivors said.

(Editing and additional reporting by Mark John in London)

700-900 migrants may have died at sea this week

Migrants from a capsized boat are rescued during a rescue operation by Italian navy ships "Bettica" and "Bergamini" off the coast of Libya

By Steve Scherer

ROME (Reuters) – At least 700 migrants may have died at sea this past week in the busiest week of migrant crossings from Libya towards Italy this year, Medecins San Frontieres and the U.N. Refugee agency said on Sunday.

About 14,000 have been rescued since Monday amid calm seas, and there have been at least three confirmed instances of boats sinking. But the number of dead can only be estimated based on survivor testimony, which is still being collected.

“We will never know exact numbers,” Medecins San Frontieres said in a Tweet after estimating that 900 had died during the week. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said more than 700 had drowned.

Migrants interviewed on Saturday in the Sicilian port of Pozzallo told of a large fishing boat that overturned and sank on Thursday with many women and children on board.

Initial estimates were that 400 people died, but the UN Refugee agency said on Sunday there may have been about 670 passengers on board.

According to testimony collected by EU border agency Frontex, when the motorless fishing boat capsized, 25 swam to the boat that had been towing it, while 79-89 others were saved by rescuers and 15 bodies were recovered. This meant more than 550 died, the UNHCR said.

The migrants — fleeing wars, oppression and poverty — often do not know how to swim and do not have life jackets. They pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to make the crossing from Libya to Italy, by far the most dangerous border passage for migrants in the world.

This week’s arrivals included Eritreans, Sudanese, Nigerians and many other West Africans, humanitarian groups say. Despite the surge this week, as of Friday 40,660 arrivals had been counted, 2 percent fewer than the same period of last year, the Interior Ministry said.

Most of the boats this week appear to have left from Sabratha, Libya, where many said smugglers had beaten them and women said they had been raped, said MSF, which has three rescue boats in the area.

The migrants are piled onto flimsy rubber boats or old fishing vessels which can toss their occupants into the sea in a matter of seconds.

About 100 are thought to have either been trapped in the hull or to have drowned after tumbling into the sea on Wednesday.

On Friday, the Italian Navy ship Vega collected 45 bodies and rescued 135 from a “half submerged” rubber boat. It is not yet known exactly how many were on board, but the rubber boats normally carry about 300.

“Some were more shaken than others because they had lost their loved ones,” Raffaele Martino, commander of the Vega, told Reuters on Sunday in the southern port of Reggio Calabria, where the Vega docked with the survivors and corpses, including those of three infants.

“It’s time that Europe had the courage to offer safe alternatives that allow these people to come without putting their own lives or those of their children in danger,” Tommaso Fabri of MSF Italy said.

(This refiled version of the story adds byline)

(Reporting by Steve Scherer; Additional reporting by Reuters TV in Reggio Calabria; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Italy says migrant boat capsized, second in two days

Migrants are seen on a partially submerged boat before to be rescued by Spanish fregate Reina Sofia off the coast of Libya

ROME (Reuters) – A migrant boat capsized in the Mediterranean on Thursday, an Italian coastguard spokesman said, and 88 people have been rescued while the number of possible dead is unknown.

It was the second shipwreck in two days, after five were confirmed to have died when a large fishing boat flipped over in the sea on Wednesday.

Boat arrivals in Italy have risen sharply this week amid warm weather and calm seas, and about 20 rescue operations are currently under way, the spokesman said.

Between 20 and 30 people are feared dead, Ansa news agency reported without saying where it got the information, while the coastguard declined to estimate how many may have died.

“We don’t know how many people were on board,” the coastguard spokesman said.

An aircraft from the European Union’s Sophia mission to fight people smuggling spotted the overturned vessel and called in the coastguard to assist in the rescue.

The coastguard has coordinated the rescue of around 900 migrants in seven different operations on Thursday. That brings the total of migrants who have been rescued since Monday to more than 7,000.

Through Tuesday, total sea arrivals in Italy had fallen by 9 percent this year, to 37,743, according to the Interior Ministry, but the country’s migrant shelters are already under pressure to house 115,507 migrants, about twice as many as two years ago.

Some 650 migrants are scheduled to arrive in the Sicilian city of Porto Empedocle later on Thursday, including the five dead bodies recovered by the Italian navy on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Steve Scherer, editing by Isla Binnie and Ralph Boulton)

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