Latest death toll: 250 dead; eleven still unidentified. Last night in L’Aquila a young women was pulled live from the rubble. Prayers and solidarity from the Catholics in South Korea and the Chaldean bishop of Amadiya and Erbil.

Rome (AsiaNews) – The search for survivors is continuing by night and by day among the rubble of the quake devastated towns of Abruzzo. Last night a 20 year old woman, Eleonora, was found alive after more than 42 hours. Eleonora’s arms and legs were trapped under a large cement block of the building that has collapsed a short distance from the historic centre of L’Aquila.  So far 150 people have been rescued alive.

Overnight and into the early hours of this morning aftershocks continued to rock the area registering magnitudes up to 3.8.

The latest figures published by the Civil Protection Authorities speak of 250 dead.  Eleven bodies are still unidentified.  The injured number 100 and the homeless 25 thousand.  Many of them have been sleeping in tents, thousands more have been transferred to hotels along the coast of Abruzzo.

Meanwhile two more messages have reached AsiaNews offices.  The first from the Korean Council for Lay Apostolate:

Dearest Fr. Cervellera,

In the name of all the lay faithful of the Korean Catholic Church and on my own behalf, I wish to express our deepest condolences for the victims of the earthquake that has hit central Italy.  We raise our humble but ardent prayers to Merciful God, so that he may welcome the souls of the numerous victims of this catastrophe into his eternal peace and give comfort and courage to their families, to the many injured and all those who have been both spiritually and materially affected by this tragedy, so that they may recover as soon as possible as well as those involved in the difficult task of rescue and relief operations.

Thomas Hong-Soon Han

President

The second comes from Iraq and is from Msgr. Rabban al-Qas, bishop of Amadiya and Erbil:

“We celebrated mass in Arbil and prayed for all of the victims of this earthquake.  With the universal Church we join in the intentions of the Holy Father for all of the victims and survivors.  The suffering of these days unites the quake victims of Abruzzo with the Cross of Jesus Christ.  We beg the Risen Lords to give them the strength to live in the Holy Spirit.  On Holy Thursday and Good Friday we will pray once more for them”.

 

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