UKH

I came in in the middle of an interview of an Italian on BBC this morning so didn't catch who the interviewee was? However I was shocked to hear him disclose that the avalanche had moved the reinforced concrete hotel bodily down the slope by several meters. Film coming from the disaster scene shows the structure to be relatively structurally unharmed, although the passageways and rooms are choked with compressed snow.

It just shows the incredible power in an avalanche that it can physically sweep a solid reinforced building off it's foundations to that extent.

Horrendous.

In reply:

Breaking news .

6 people have just been found alive in the hotel more than 24 hours after the avalanche.

In reply to Trangia:

This was a monstrous avalanche, triggered by a quite strong earthquake, in an area that should not normally be at high risk (trees, quite a bit of flat ground around it, not particularly big mountains and probably not normally huge amounts of snow - ironically everywhere else to the North is desperately short of snow, but in the Apennines, like a lot of Southern places, they have a lot at present).

Sheer very bad luck that such a huge slide should hit it, with such devastating and tragic results, and quite out of the normal for the area. Lets all hope against hope that they get some more people out alive.

In reply to Trangia:


Not sure about that, from before and after pictures it looks as though the upper stories have been more or less completely swept away. There is talk of mattresses being found 500m from the hotel site.

In reply to Trangia:

The very good news now is that there are 10 survivors.