BY DPA,
Rome: The toll from the earthquake that struck central Italy early Monday, rose to 207 Tuesday, according to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Berlusconi turned down offers of help from abroad. “We thank foreign nations for their solidarity, but we invite them not to send us their aid,” he said at a news conference in Abruzzo’s capital, L’Aquila.
The city has been badly damaged together with other towns located not far from the earthquake’s epicentre.
Berlusconi said the “proud people” of Italy, thanks to their country’s prosperity would be able to deal the problem “by ourselves”.
Earlier Germany’s Red Cross and aid organisation Humedica issued calls for donations, while officials in Washington said the United States would make emergency relief funds available to Italy. Offers of help also came from Taiwan and Lebanon.
During the news conference, Berlusconi also gave an update on the latest rescue efforts which he said would continue for the next 48 hours, a time in which “we will have certainty” on whether people buried under rubble are still alive.
He noted that among the possible survivors were four students believed to be trapped under a building serving as a university dormitory near L’Aquila’s city centre.
Earlier, rescuers working over 20 hours after the quake struck, pulled a 24-year-old female student alive from another building in the city.
Of the dead, 17 have yet to be identified, while 15 people are reported missing, Berlusconi said.
“I appeal to people not to attempt to return to their houses, as the situation is still dangerous because of the ongoing aftershocks,” he said.
Monday’s earthquake which registered between 5.8 and 6.2 on the Richter scale has been followed by more than 280 aftershocks, including one just before noon which registered 4.3.
Rescue efforts have also been hampered by the region’s hilly landscape which has made it difficult for firefighters and soldiers backed by more than 2,000 volunteers, to position cranes and other tools and equipment needed to clear debris.
Among those involved in the rescue efforts was rugby player Ollie Hodge, who told British media that a teammate from his L’Aquila club was killed in the earthquake and about his own experience in the rescue efforts.
The 29-year-old Hodge said that after being woken by the initial, powerful tremor, he joined teammates in carrying patients and beds from L’Aquila’s main hospital which, on the brink of collapse, was evacuated Monday.
Citing the hospital, the World Health Organization Tuesday said developed nations should ensure that measures are in place to make hospitals safe in times of emergencies.
The evacuated hospital was relatively new, having been built about 15 years ago.
Speaking in L’Aquila, Berlusconi said that of the around 1,000 people injured in connection with the earthquake, 500 were have been hospitalized in facilities located in the Abruzzo region.
“Unfortunately the condition of 100 of these people is serious,” he said.
According to news reports, many residents of L’Aquila and neighbouring towns spent Monday night inside their cars, because of a short supply of tents at camps set up by authorities.
Berlusconi said efforts were underway to ensure that enough tents to accommodate 14,000 people would be in place by Tuesday night. He also said 16 field-kitchens would be operating by then.