Aftershocks threaten recovery efforts in Italy as death toll hits 281

Rescue workers acknowledged Friday they might not find any more survivors from Italy's earthquake as they confronted a new obstacle to their recovery work: a powerful aftershock that damaged two key access bridges to hard-hit Amatrice, threatening to isolate it.

Mayor Sergio Pirozzi, warned that if new roads weren't quickly cleared to bypass the damaged ones, Amatrice risked being cut off at a time it needs as many transport options as possible to bring emergency crews in and some of the quake's 281 dead out.

"With the aftershocks yesterday but especially this morning the situation has worsened considerably," Pirozzi told reporters. "We have to make sure Amatrice does not become isolated, or risk further help being unable to get through."

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The biggest aftershock struck at 6:28 a.m., one of the more than 1,000 that have hit the area since Wednesday's quake. The U.S. Geological Service said it had a magnitude of 4.7, while the Italian geophysics institute measured it at 4.8.

It left one key access bridge to Amatrice unusable, and damaged another one. Crews began clearing trees to create an alternate bypass road to avoid the nearly 40-kilometre detour up and down mountain roads that they were forced to use Friday, slowing the rescue effort.

Three days after the quake struck the mountainous heart of the country, sniffer dogs and emergency crews continued to scour the town of Amatrice, which was levelled in the disaster, but there was no sign of life beneath the debris.

"Only a miracle can bring our friends back alive from the rubble, but we are still digging because many are missing," town mayor Sergio Pirozzi told reporters, saying, around 15 people, including some children, had not been accounted for.

In nearby villages, such as Pescara del Tronto, rescuers pulled out after all the inhabitants had been accounted for.

Italy plans to hold a state funeral for around 40 of the victims on Saturday, which will be held in the nearby city of Ascoli Piceno.

CBC's Margaret Evans visited the gymnasium where funeral preparations are being made.

"They're already setting up coffins. People are visiting. The victims are laid out on the floor of the gymnasium," she said. "A very difficult scene, very sombre. People sitting on chairs in front of their loved ones. There were two small coffins, as well. Always very difficult to see the bodies of children."

Day of national mourning

A day of national mourning was announced, with flags due to fly at half mast around the country for the dead, who include a number of foreigners.

The civil protection department in Rome said 388 people were being treated for injuries in hospitals, and 40 of them were in critical condition. An estimated 2,500 people were left homeless by the most deadly quake in Italy since 2009.

Survivors with nowhere else to go are sleeping in neat rows of blue tents set up close to their flattened communities. The government has promised to rebuild the region, but some local people feared that would never happen.

"I'm afraid our village and others like it will just die. Most people don't live here year round anyway. In the winter time the towns are virtually empty," said Salvatore Petrucci, 77, who came from the nearby hamlet of Trisunga. "We may be the last ones to have lived in Trisunga."

We don't know, and we might never know, if the number of missing that we knew about actually corresponds to the people who were actually under the rubble.- Paolo Cortell, rescue worker

By Friday, most of the outlying communities were quiet and empty, buildings lying in crumpled mounds, the innards of private homes exposed to the skies and belongings scattered in the debris.

"We have removed the last bodies that we knew about," said Paolo Cortelli, a member of the Alpine Rescue national service who helped to recover about 30 bodies from Pescara del Tronto.

"We don't know, and we might never know, if the number of missing that we knew about actually corresponds to the people who were actually under the rubble."

Foreign victims

The foreigners who died in the disaster included six Romanians, a Spanish woman, a Canadian and an Albanian. Three British holidaymakers, including a 14-year-old boy, also died.

The area is popular with vacationers and local authorities were struggling to pin down how many visitors were present when the quake hit.

The Romanian Foreign Ministry said 17 Romanians were still missing. Italy has a large Romanian community, and some of the victims were residents in the country. The first funeral of a victim was held in Rome on Friday, for Marco Santarelli, the 28-year-old son of a senior state official, who died in the family's holiday home in Amatrice.

"I cannot find the words to describe the grief of a father who outlives his own children. Perhaps there are no words," Marco's father, Filippo Santarelli, told Corriere della Sera newspaper. Later in the day, a funeral service for six other victims, including an eight-year-old boy and two girls aged 14 and 15, was held in their hometown of Pomezia, south of Rome.

Officials said 181 of the victims had been identified, including at least 21 children. The youngest was just 5-1/2 months old. The eldest was 93.

Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has declared a state of emergency for the region, allowing the government to release an immediate 50 million euros ($73 million Cdn.) for the relief work.

He has promised to rebuild the shattered homes and said he would also renew efforts to bolster Italy's flimsy defences against earthquakes that regularly batter the country.

"We want those communities to have the chance of a future and not just memories," he told reporters in Rome on Thursday.