Rescuers said five people were found alive in the rubble of an Italian hotel today, two days after an avalanche tore through the ski resort.
"We found five people alive. We're pulling them out. Send us a helicopter," a rescuer said over firefighters' radio, overheard by AP photographer Gregorio Borgia who was making his way toward the remote hotel on foot before being turned away by authorities.
About 30 people were trapped inside the luxury Hotel Rigopiano when the avalanche hit on Wednesday afternoon, with two people initially surviving the devastation and reporting the emergency.
The ANSA news agency said the number of possible new survivors was six and that firefighting crews were in touch with them, but that they were still under the rubble.
Helicopters reportedly were on the way to the site to aid the evacuation.
Search and rescue teams maintained the hope of finding survivors of an avalanche that buried a hotel under up to five meters of snow, even two days after the disaster.
"We are hoping that the ceiling collapsed partially in some places and that someone remained underneath," rescuer Lorenzo Gagliardi told SKY TG24.
Rescuers were using shovels to dig into the tons of snow and debris. Two bodies were recovered and RAI state TV reported two more had been located but not yet removed.
The operations have been hampered by difficulty in accessing the remote hotel. Workers have been clearing a seven-kilometre road to bring in heavier equipment but it can handle only one-way traffic.
Alpine corps rescuer Milan Walter told SKY that they were considering whether to ferry more personnel in by helicopter as was done yesterday.
A convoy of rescue vehicles made slow progress to the hotel, blocked by snow piled three meters high in some places, fallen trees and rocks. By late yesterday, only 25 vehicles had arrived, along with 135 rescue workers, and civil protection authorities said part of the night was spent trying to widen the road.
The first rescue teams had arrived on skis early yesterday, and firefighters were dropped in by helicopter. Snowmobiles were also being mobilized.
Two people escaped the devastation at the Hotel Rigopiano in the quake-stricken mountains of central Italy and called for help. But it took hours for responders to arrive at the remote hotel, located about 45 kilometers from the coastal city of Pescara, at an altitude of about 1,200 meters.
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