A provisional count of 22 people dead, with many more still trapped beneath the rubble, was issued last night following the collapse early yesterday of a six-storey block of flats in the southern Italian town of Foggia. Many people were pulled alive from the rubble in the course of yesterday and rescue workers were last night engaged in a desperate floodlit search in the hope of finding further survivors. City authorities believe that 71 people were in the building at the time of its collapse.
The rescue operation was hampered not only by a serious fire caused by the collapse but also by the need for workers to pick their way delicately through the building rubble for fear of injuring trapped survivors.
Much of the rescue work was effected by hand, while specially trained dogs were also used.
Television images gave the impression of a vast bomb site, in which smoke and dust combined to create a living hell. Distraught relatives and friends stood by, encouraging the rescue workers and applauding when survivors were pulled out of the rubble.
The building, on Foggia's Viale Giotto, collapsed shortly after 3 a.m. Survivors reported strange noises shortly before its collapse, while one entire family was woken by the cracking up of the building and managed to flee the block before it collapsed. Other residents of the 26 apartments were on their balconies or in the stairwell.
The Toracca family ran to warn the building janitor, who lives in another apartment block nearby. The janitor then tried to rouse the sleeping families by ringing their street-level doorbells. Approximately five minutes elapsed between the time that the Toracca family fled the building and its collapse.
Both the Interior Minister, Ms Rosa Russo Jervolino, and the Foggia civic authorities stressed yesterday that it was too early to speculate on the possible causes of the building's collapse, but independent geologists and architects all argued that there could be only one of two reasons for the tragedy: either it was provoked by a serious fault in the building's construction or the foundations had been disturbed by seismic motions.
Seismograph readings at the Istituto Nigri in Foggia partially concur with the theory of a minor earthquake, while local authorities yesterday denied that residents had expressed any concern about the building, constructed in 1974. Furthermore, an undersecretary at the Civil Protection Ministry, Mr Franco Barberi, yesterday argued that the fact that the contractor who originally built the apartment, Mr Antoni Delli Carri, lived there would seem to rule out faulty or unsound building practices. Last night, Mr Delli Cari was reported to be among those missing under the rubble.
Among those to express his distress at the news of the tragedy was Pope John Paul. The Prime Minister, Mr Massimo D'Alema, flew to Foggia to "express solidarity" with the city, the families and all those afflicted by the tragedy.
Announcing that the government would declare a state of emergency in Foggia as well as make available emergency funding, the Prime Minister said: "The co-operation here between state and local authorities and all the other rescue groups . . . has been extraordinary. "I am deeply moved by the sight of people working here with their bare hands to try and save more lives."
Meanwhile, in a move that is obligatory under Italian law, Foggia state prosecutor Ms Gabriella Tavano yesterday opened a formal judicial inquiry into the tragedy. The investigators into the Foggia apartment collapse will not lack legal precedents, as 151 people have died in eight different building collapses in Italy in the last 20 years. The most recent incident occurred in Rome in December of last year when 27 people died after an apartment block collapsed in the Portuense area of the city.
The most serious post-war incident of this kind occurred in Barletta in September 1959 when 60 people died in a building that had contravened building regulations.