Four Italians were confirmed dead
in Saturday's 7.8-magnitude earthquake in Nepal but the toll is
expected to rise as there is an unspecified number of missing.
Cavers Gigliola Mancinelli and Oskar Piazza and trekkers
Renzo Benedetti and Marco Pojer were confirmed dead.
Iolanda Mattevi, a 52-year-old native of Trento who saw her
two companions Benedetti and Pojer die, told ANSA on Monday her
eyewitness account of the quake.
"I heard a roar behind me and then I saw a cloud that was
coming down, pushed by a frightening wind. I started to run, but
I was struck by a rain of rocks and snow," she said, describing
the landslide that she survived during the quake that killed two
of her traveling companions, Renzo Benedetti and Marco Pojer.
Mattevi arrived in Nepal in early April with Benedetti,
Pojer, and a third friend, Attilio Dantone, for the trip she'd
"always dreamed of" .
The group was hiking at 3,500 metres in the Langtang Valley
situated north of Kathmandu when the quake struck.
Mattevi said Benedetti and Pojer had left the group to
deliver some medicine to an elderly Nepalese woman and that they
were to join the group later down the trail.
When the quake struck, "our friends were hit full on, while
I found refuge under a rock and that's how I survived," said
Dantone, an Alpine hiking guide who manages a mountain refuge in
Italy's Cembra Valley.
Mattevi is in hospital with a fractured forearm and finger,
and will remain under observation for some days.
A Nepalese guide and two cooks who were accompanying the
Italians on their excursion were also killed in the quake.
As for Piazza and Mancinelli, the two cavers who died,
relatives told ANSA they had decided not to go caving on the day
of the quake because of bad weather.
Mancinelli was a 51-year-old anesthetist and Ancona native,
while Piazza was a member of the Trentino Alto Adige Alpine
Rescue.
It was hard to put names or numbers to those missing amid
reports that some had phoned home to say they were safe and
unconfirmed estimates that Italy, like France, could have had
over 100 climbers, trekkers and cavers in the area when the
quake struck.
Meanwhile the toll continued to climb.
"The toll is continuing to rise steadily," Caritas Nepal
director Father Pius Perumana told the Fides news agency.
"We are at over 3,000 but the estimates could touch 6,000
people considering the districts hit," he said.
"There an estimated 5,000 injured and thousands have been
evacuated or are homeless".
The official death toll reached 4,000 but Nepalese
authorities stressed this was provisional because many
outlying villages and towns had not been reached.
One of five Italian mountaineers who escaped the quake and
made it to a scientific base camp on Mount Everest said Monday
their brush with death was harrowing.
"We stared death in the face," said Vicenza-area native
Mario Vielmo, speaking from the Ev-K2-CNR Association's Pyramid
International Laboratory-Observatory at 5,050 meters altitude on
the Nepal slope of Mount Everest.
The Pyramid Lab was built in 1987 and has become the hub
of an international network of 29 climate-tracking stations.
The other four Italians who escaped death on the mountain
are Claudio Tessarolo and Annalisa Fioretti, both from Vicenza,
Sebastiano Valentini di Canazei from Trento, and Marco Sala,
from the Belluno area.
"We're all fine," Vielmo said. "We've been spared".
Also on Monday, the Ev-K2-CNR Association - a private
scientific association working with Italy's National Research
Center (CNR) - said Sherpa mountain guides reported an
unconfirmed number of people have been swallowed up by ice
crevices that opened between Base Camp and Camp 1 as a result of
the earthquake.
Some two million minors are in need of aid and 30 out of 75
districts of Nepal have been affected by the violent earthquake,
said Save the Children NGO.
As well, the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI) has
announced it will allocate three million euros in emergency aid
to be distributed by the Apostolic Nuncio in Nepal, Monsignor
Salvatore Pennacchio.
Meanwhile, Italy has already earmarked hundreds of
thousands of euros for aid to Nepal and has sent a crisis team
to the capital of Kathmandu, Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni
said in Beijing.
"We'll assess whether the conditions are there for the
recovery of cultural assets," he added.
"But right now we must focus on the missing, the wounded,
and the Italians who are stuck (in Nepal) and are trying to
leave".
The international aid effort for Nepal gathered pace, with
China, India, Pakistan and Britain among the countries
contributing to the effort, alongside major aid agencies.
Nepal has asked for more help, saying it needs everything
from helicopters and blankets to paramedics and drivers.
At least 200 climbers have now been rescued around Mount
Everest, after the quake triggered avalanches.
Vast tent cities have sprung up in Kathmandu for those
displaced or afraid to return to their homes. Across the
country, thousands spent Sunday night - their second night -
outside.
There are shortages of water, food and electricity, while
disease is also a concern.
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