Tue, April 07, 2009
Rescuers used mechanical diggers and their bare hands to search through the night Tuesday for survivors of Italy's worst quake in three decades which killed nearly 180 people.
More than 24 hours after the quake shook the central Italian region of Abruzzo, emergency workers dug out two students early Tuesday from collapsed buildings in L'Aquila, the medieval mountain city of 68,000 people worst hit by the disaster.
Rescuers have pulled some 100 people from the rubble but with other missing, civil protection officials said hopes were dimming of finding many more alive.
Early Tuesday morning civil protection officials put the number of dead at 179. There were at least 34 people missing and 1,500 injured. They said the number of homeless was at least 17,000, far less that the some 50,000 estimated Monday.
