PENNE (Italy): A total of 10 survivors were found on Friday in the ruins of an avalanche-hit hotel in central Italy, the national spokesman for the fire service said, clarifying earlier confused tallies.

The spokesman, Luca Cari, said two people, a mother and her son, had been pulled out and taken to hospital while the remaining eight were still under the rubble but had been located by rescuers.Italian rescuers began pulling survivors from the ruins of a mountain hotel, two days after it was buried under a devastating avalanche.

Amidst relief that anyone at all had survived, there was confusion over the exact numbers located and extracted amid conflicting updates from different branches of the emergency services.A group of six people were found in an air pocket but only two of them, a mother and her young son, had been extracted by mid-afternoon, contrary to earlier briefings from rescuers.

Roberto Carminucci, one of the coordinators of the rescue operation, said contact had been made with another group, reported by Italian media to count five survivors.

“We are in contact and we hope to find survivors but we don’t know how many voices we are hearing or the state (of health) of those trapped so we cannot give any firm numbers yet,” he said. By late afternoon any survivors would have spent a full two days under the snow-covered rubble of the Hotel Rigopiano, a three-storey spa hotel on the eastern lower slopes of Monte Gran Sasso, the highest peak in central Italy.

Marco Bini, one of the officers who reached the first group of six survivors, said the rescue team had been alerted to their possible location when they detected smoke.

He said six people had been found together in an air pocket, including the mother and child, who were later shown emerging from a vertical tunnel in the snow.

“They were all in reasonable health, if very cold. The fire will have been using up the oxygen so we were lucky to find them.

“Their faces said it all, it was like they had been reborn.” A video released by firefighters showed the boy, thought to be seven, emerging into the air to cheers from firemen who mussed his hair.

Bini said the rescue had raised hopes others would be found in similar air pockets.

“The snow will have prevented anyone inside from getting too cold, it isolates like an igloo,” he said.

More than 25 people, including several children, were thought to have been in the hotel when it was hit by a massive wall of snow.

Revised estimates on Friday suggested the total could have been as high as 34. Two bodies were recovered when rescuers first reached the site.

Most of the guests were waiting to leave when the avalanche struck late Wednesday afternoon.

The had decided to leave after earthquakes in the region earlier in the day but the heavy snow blocked roads and delayed their transport.

Scores of mountain police, firefighters and other emergency personnel were deployed at the hotel.

Progress was agonisingly slow, with rescuers wary of triggering further movements in the snow piled up on top of the masonry.

Published in Dawn January 21st, 2017