Italy on Thursday marked the seventh
anniversary of the Rigopiano Hotel avalanche disaster in Abruzzo
that claimed 29 lives.
The avalanche hit the hotel in Farindola on January 18, 2017 as
40 people, including guests and staff, were inside waiting for
help following extreme weather conditions and a series of
earthquakes in the area.
Most of the 29 victims were instantly crushed to death. Eleven
people survived.
Rescuers reached the site several hours after the avalanche and
had to travel on foot because roads had been blocked by heavy
snow.
"Seven years after the unforgettable Rigopiano tragedy, we renew
our closeness to the relatives of the 29 victims and to the
entire Abruzzo community and join them in their call for
justice," said Senate Speaker Ignazio La Russa.
Last February a preliminary hearings judge in Pescara convicted
five people and acquitted 25 others in relation to the tragedy,
amid strong protests from victims' relatives in the courtroom.
The 30 defendants, including administrators and public
officials, as well as the manager and owner of the hotel, were
charged in various capacities with the offences of culpable
disaster, multiple culpable homicide, injuries, forgery,
deception and building abuse.
The mayor of Farindola was found guilty and got two years and
eight months in jail while two former officials, the ex prefect
of Pescara and the ex provincial president, were among those
acquitted.
The appeal judgement is scheduled for February 9.
Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said the
memory of the victims "must spur us to work so that similar
tragedies do not happen again".
Tajani also recalled "with gratitude the heroic work carried out
by the rescuers, in particular by the finance police, whose
staff at the L'Aquila Alpine rescue station were the first to
reach the structure still isolated by the snow, providing aid to
the people trapped inside and contributing decisively to
containing the tragic toll induced by the avalanche".
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