Six people including a young boy were found alive on Friday two days after being buried under an avalanche that flattened a mountain hotel in central Italy, a national fire brigade official said, APA reports quoting Reuters.
More than 30 people were in the luxury Hotel Rigopiano when the wall of snow slammed into it on Wednesday afternoon, officials said, spreading debris across the valley floor.
"Two survivors have been pulled out, and we are speaking to the other four," said Luca Cari told Reuters by phone from the scene of the disaster in the Abruzzo region.
"It's hard work. We're having to cut through the roof to get to them," he said, adding that it appeared that they had been trapped in a bedroom of the four-storey building for about 42 hours.
The Civil Protection agency earlier said eight survivors had been located.
Firefighters clapped and cheered after they pulled a young boy wearing a blue sweatshirt from a hole that they had cut in the submerged roof with a power saw, a video showed.
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