MILAN — Rescue workers were met with an eerie silence Thursday when they reached a four-star spa hotel struck by an avalanche in a mountainous earthquake-stricken region of central Italy. At least 30 people were missing, including at least two children, authorities said.

Guests at the three-storey Hotel Rigopiano in the central Abruzzo region alerted emergency workers of the disaster on Wednesday, following a series of quakes in the region.

“Help, we’re dying of cold,” one couple wrote rescuers, according to the ANSA news agency. Another man, identified by news reports as Fabio Salzetta, sent a SMS message saying he had escaped with a maintenance worker, but that others were trapped inside.

Corriere della Sera quoted the text message as saying: “Some walls were knocked down.” And: “I’m outside with a maintenance worker but you can’t see anything of the hotel, there’s only a wall of snow in front of me.”

When rescuers on skis arrived in the early morning hours of Thursday, they found just two people alive, according to news reports. Civil protection authorities said that 30 people were missing. The ANSA news agency quoted a rescuer as saying that there were fatalities, but details weren’t immediately available. Just one body was reported removed from the hotel by late morning Thursday.

One of those saved was 38-year-old Giampaolo Parete, who told rescuers he had gone outside to get something from the car, which was untouched by the avalanche, but that his wife and two children were buried inside, the news agency ANSA reported.

Rescue efforts were hampered by the large snowfall in recent days, making it difficult to clear roads for heavy vehicles and ambulances to get through.

The buried hotel was just one of several rescues underway in an area that has been pummelled by more than a metre (three feet) of snow in recent days — storms that have knocked out power and phone lines and blocked roads, isolating towns and hamlets.

Video footage from Italian financial police force GDF showed a grey-haired man being led to safety by rescuers through a path dug out of deep snow from another rescue in the region.

Snow continued to fall throughout the region, with reports of people being isolated in many places. A resident of a town in the province of Teramo, Daiana Nguyen, told SKY TG24 that three metres (about 10 feet) of snow had fallen and that people “were completely isolated.”

The timing of the avalanche Wednesday and the messages remained unclear, but the hotel posted a notice on its Facebook page that its phones were down around 9 a.m. following the first of Wednesday’s quakes, including one with a 5.7 magnitude. It wasn’t immediately clear if the temblors triggered the avalanche.

Video shot by rescue teams showed huge piles of filthy snow and debris piled up inside corridors, stairwells and an indoor pool area, having slammed through the outer walls of the building. The audio is silent. The largest wall of snow shown was in the pool area, where plastic lounge chairs were flipped on their sides and Christmas decorations still dangled from the ceiling.

The bar area appeared flooded, with nearby cracked skylights covered with snow outside.

Aerial video shot by helicopter crews showed rescue workers on top of the snow-covered hotel, digging holes down to try to get in.

The civil protection agency said that they were working to get rescue vehicles to Hotel Rigopiano through roads covered in snow, joining initial rescue efforts overnight by alpine rescue teams who went in on skis.

The hotel is about 45 kilometres (30 miles) from the coastal city of Pescara, at an altitude of about 1,200 metres (3,940 feet).

An ambulance was blocked about nine kilometres (5 1/2 miles) from the hotel, according to SKY, which also said that snowfall was so heavy that snow plows have had trouble clearing the road to the hotel.

The mountainous region of central Italy has been struck by a series of quakes since August that destroyed historic centres in dozens of towns and hamlets. A deadly quake in August killed nearly 300, while no one died in the strong aftershocks in October largely because population centres had already been evacuated. In the meantime, the entire region has been hit by freezing weather and buffeted by snowstorms, piling more suffering on to the hard-hit population.

People left homeless by the earlier quakes had been moved to hotels in the region, but it wasn’t immediately clear if any of them were staying at Hotel Rigopiano, which is located in the Gran Sasso National Park.

On Tuesday, the hotel posted photos of the recent snowfall, calling it “a dream Tuesday. Snow is giving us spectacular scenes.” It advised guests that roads were still passable but snow tires were required with chains for cars. In the hours since the report of the avalanche, Facebook users have been posting messages on the hotel’s page seeking information about the hotel. </s> Hopes of finding survivors dwindled on Thursday more than 24 hours after an avalanche struck a luxury mountain hotel in Italy burying up to 30 people under tonnes of snow and debris.

The Civil Protection department said just two bodies had been recovered but its chief said the search for victims and possible survivors would continue through the night.

"There is always hope, if there were no hope the rescuers wouldn't give everything they've got," Fabrizio Curcio told reporters. He said his teams would "continue to do everything possible during the night," even though conditions were far more difficult than in daytime.

The disaster struck hours after four earthquakes with a magnitude above 5 hit central Italy.

Titti Postiglione, head of the department's emergency office, said more snow could fall from peaks in the Gran Sasso mountain range in the central Abruzzo region because the temperature was rising, while further quakes were possible.

"This is an enormously complex rescue operation," she said.

The gabled peaks of parts of the roof and a row of windows were the only sections of the four-storey Hotel Rigopiano visible after the wall of snow smashed into the four-star spa resort on Wednesday evening.

"This is a tragedy of enormous proportions," said Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin.

Local authorities said about 30 people had been in the building at the time, including two children. The only survivors found were two men who had been outside when the disaster struck.

"The hotel is almost completely destroyed. We've called out but we've heard no replies, no voices," said Antonio Crocetta, a member of the Alpine Rescue squad.

"We're digging and looking for people," he told Reuters by phone from the isolated location.

Rescue workers entered what appeared to be a lobby decorated with oil paintings and plants, where a landslide had torn through a wall, television footage showed.

Mattresses and furniture were spotted dozens of meters (yards) away and sniffer dogs were helping with the search.

"I am alive because I went to get something from my car," Giampiero Parete told medical staff. Italian media said he had been on holiday with his wife and two children, who are missing.

Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni called for national unity, saying Italy was caught in an "unprecedented vice" of earthquakes and heavy snows.

The rescue operation was hampered by deep snow which has fallen on the Gran Sasso in recent days. Drifts made snow as deep as five meters (16 feet) in some places and snow ploughs struggled to cut a path up winding mountain roads.

The first rescuers arrived at 4.30 a.m. (0330 GMT) after having to ski through a blizzard to reach the site. After dawn broke, emergency services sent in helicopters.

A base camp for rescue workers was set up in the town of Penne, some 10 km (6 miles) away, where ambulances waited.

The avalanche shunted the 43-room hotel, which is 1,200 meters (4,000 ft) above sea level, about 10 meters down the hill, according to media reports.

Italian media said guests at the hotel had checked out and were waiting for a snow plough to arrive to open up the road and let them down the mountain when the avalanche struck. </s> FARINDOLA, Italy (AP) — With cheers of joy, rescue crews pulled survivors from the debris of an avalanche-crushed hotel in central Italy on Friday, boosting spirits two days after the massive snow slide buried some 30 people at the resort. At least two children were among the 10 people found alive.

The news sent relatives of the missing rushing from the rescue operations center in the mountains to the hospital on the coast in hopes that their loved ones were among the lucky few to be found.

And it buoyed rescue workers who had already located four bodies from the avalanche that slammed Wednesday into the luxury Hotel Rigopiano, 180 kilometers (112 miles) northeast of Rome, and dumped up to 5 meters (16½ feet) of snow on top of the resort.

“Today is a day of hope. There’s a miracle under way,” said Ilario Lacchetta, mayor of the tiny town of Farindola, where the hotel is located.

First word of the discovery came at around 11 a.m. Video released by rescuers showed a boy wearing blue snow pants and a matching ski shirt emerging through a snow hole. Emergency crews mussed his hair in celebration.

Next came a woman with a long ponytail wearing red snow pants, appearing fully alert. Both were helped to a stretcher for the helicopter ride out.

“This first news has obviously repaid all the rescuers’ efforts,” said Italy’s deputy interior minister, Filippo Bubbico.

About 30 people were trapped inside the hotel in the Gran Sasso mountain range when the avalanche struck after days of winter storms that dumped up to 3 meters (nearly 10 feet) of snow in some places. The region was also rocked by four earthquakes on Wednesday, though it was not clear if any of those set off the avalanche.

Two people initially survived the devastation and called for help. One of them, Giampiero Parete, had called his boss and begged him to mobilize rescue crews because his wife and two children were trapped inside.

Parete’s Romanian-born wife, Adriana Vranceanu, 43, and 8-year-old son Gianfilippo, were reunited later Friday with their father at the hospital in the nearby city of Pescara, ANSA news agency and state-run RAI radio said.

Rescue workers were still searching for their daughter, 6-year-old Ludovica, after her mother indicated she was alive under the debris. The Romanian foreign ministry confirmed an adult and child had been rescued and taken to the hospital in Pescara.

Outside the hospital, other relatives gathered anxiously as ambulances arrived.

“I just hope that my niece and her boyfriend will make it out of there,” said Melissa Riccardo. “We just came here to see if she was here.”

The number of survivors found and extracted evolved over the course of the day.

“We found five people alive. We’re pulling them out. Send us a helicopter!” a rescuer was heard saying over a firefighters’ radio as Associated Press reporters made their way on foot to the site of the disaster.

Late Friday, firefighter spokesman Luca Cari said a total of 10 survivors, including two children, had been located but only a few had been extracted.

Rescue crews said one group of survivors had been found in the hotel’s kitchen area, and had survived thanks to an air pocket that formed when reinforced cement walls partially resisted the avalanche’s violent power.

“It’s probable that they realized the risk and took protective measures,” Romano said.

Those being rescued were in remarkably good condition, rescue workers said.

Titi Postiglione, operations chief of the civil protection agency, said survivors would help rescuers try to locate others trapped in the hotel.

“They can give us a series of indications to help with our intervention plan, information to understand what happened and help direct the search,” she said.

Prosecutors opened a manslaughter investigation into the tragedy and were looking into whether the avalanche threat was taken seriously enough, and whether the hotel should have been evacuated earlier given the heavy snowfall and forecasts, Italian media said.

“That hotel, in that historic moment, should it have been open?” prosecutor Christina Tedeschini was quoted by ANSA as saying. “If the people wanted to leave, what prevented them from doing so?”

Parete, the survivor who sounded the alarm, said the guests had all checked out and were waiting for the road to be cleared so they could evacuate. But the snowplow never arrived and the avalanche hit around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday.

In addition, pleas for a rescue team initially went unheeded by Italian authorities. Parete’s boss, restaurant owner Quintino Marcella, said his call to the Pescara prefect’s office was rebuffed because the hotel had informed it a few hours earlier that all was OK there.

He persisted with other emergency responders and eventually someone took his information seriously and mobilized the rescue, some two hours later.

Tedeschini said the delay was “a relevant theme that we will look into.”

The operation has also been hampered by fears of triggering new avalanches and building collapses onto possible survivors trapped in the hotel rubble.

Workers have been clearing a 7-kilometer (5.5-mile) road to bring in heavier equipment, but the mountain road can handle only one-way traffic and is covered with snow and fallen trees and rocks.

Days of heavy snowfall had knocked out electricity and phone lines in many central Italian towns and hamlets, and the hotel phones went down early Wednesday, just as the first of the four powerful earthquakes struck.

The force of the massive snow slide collapsed one wing of the hotel and rotated another off its foundation, pushing it downhill.

Lacchetta, the Farindola mayor, said the hotel had 24 guests, four of them children, and 12 employees onsite at the time of the avalanche.

An Alpine rescue team was the first to arrive at the hotel on cross-country skis after a seven-kilometer (more than four-mile) journey that took two hours. They found Parete and Fabio Salzetta, a hotel maintenance worker, in a car in the resort’s parking lot.

Parete was taken to a hospital while Salzetta stayed behind to help rescuers identify where guests might be buried and how crews could enter the buildings.

The mountainous region of central Italy has been struck by a series of quakes since August that destroyed homes and historic centers in dozens of towns and hamlets. A deadly quake in August killed nearly 300 people. No one died in strong aftershocks in the region in October, largely because towns had already been evacuated. </s> An avalanche hit a popular mountain hotel in central Italy after a series of strong earthquakes had rattled the area, and up to 30 people might be buried under the snow, officials said on Wednesday.

“Around 30 people are unaccounted for, between guests and workers at the Hotel Rigopiano in Farindola,” Fabrizio Curcio, head of Italy‘s civil protection department, told reporters.

Other officials said it was too early to say if anyone might have died, with the rescue operation hampered by up to 5 metres (16.4 ft) of snow which has fallen on the Gran Sasso mountain range in the central Abruzzo region in recent days.

The avalanche collapsed part of the four-storey hotel, which is some 1,200 metres (4,000 ft) above sea level, and moved it some 10 metres (30 ft) according to media reports.

A wall of snow and debris hit the hotel on Wednesday evening, just hours after four strong earthquakes had shaken central Italy, sparking fears about possible avalanches.

Two men who were outside the building at the time of the disaster and raised the alarm.

“I am alive because I went to get something from my car,” one of the two, Giampiero Parete, told medical staff, according to la Repubblica website.

Blocked roads in the area meant the first rescuers only arrived at 4.30 a.m. (0330 GMT) after they had skied through a heavy snow storm to reach the site. After dawn broke, emergency services sent in helicopters.

“We’re dropping our rescue units down by helicopter and they are starting to dig,” said Luca Cari, spokesman for the national fire brigades.

A base camp for rescue workers was set up in the town of Penne, some 10 km (6 miles) away from the Rigopiano hotel, which was a popular 4-star spa resort with 43 rooms.

An aerial shot of the hotel released by the fire brigade showed just the last floor and the roof visible above a thick blanket of snow.

Initial television pictures showed that mounds of snow and debris had smashed through a hotel wall into the lobby.

Italian media had earlier reported that “many dead” had been found inside the hotel. However officials in the area denied the report. </s> PENNE, Italy (CNN) -- Rescuers are working in freezing conditions to find as many as 30 people feared trapped in a hotel in central Italy, more than a day after it was buried by an avalanche.

Two people were killed when the four-star Hotel Rigopiano, at the foot of the Gran Sasso mountain about (135 kilometers) 85 miles northeast of Rome, was swallowed by snow after a series of earthquakes.

"There are many dead," Alpine rescuer Antonio Crocetta told Italian state media ANSA Thursday.

Officials say some could have survived in air pockets within the building, however rescuers so far have found no signs of life.

"We are calling out but no one is answering," one searcher told ANSA.

Officials based estimates of the missing on guest registration and staff numbers. The hotel has 43 rooms, according to website TripAdvisor.

Italian fire department spokesman Luca Cari, who was at the scene, told CNN that the hotel had been "completely slammed" in the avalanche and debris was scattered as far as 100 meters from the hotel structure, making the search area large.

Two people were rescued from the site of the hotel, Civil Protection Department chief Fabrizio Curcio told journalists.

One man, vacationing with his wife and two children, 6 and 8, said he missed being caught in the destruction only because he had walked to his car just before the avalanche hit.

"The avalanche came down and I was buried in snow, but I managed to get out. The car was not buried so I waited there for the rescuers to come," Giampiero Parete was reported to have said.

The whereabouts of his wife and children were unknown Thursday.

Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said the country hadn't seen this much snowfall in decades.

The deep snow combined with the earthquake created a perfect storm of sorts, exacerbating the aftermath of the temblor.

"For the weather, you tell people to stay in their homes, while for the earthquake, citizens must be brought outside. Putting together these two elements is extremely complicated," Curcio said.

Access to the hotel been difficult, but road crews cleared much of the snow and fallen trees by nighttime Thursday, finally allowing heavy rescue equipment to reach the hotel.

Snow machines and helicopters had earlier taken searchers, including dogs, up the mountain.

Rescuers battled blizzards and strong winds to reach the site, some having to ski for several kilometers in the darkness to get there because some roads were impassable.

When they arrived, they found only the building's top story and roof visible above the snow, Italy's Mountain Rescue Service said on social media. It also posted a picture of rescuers digging for survivors.

Video recorded by rescue teams showed what appears to be a smashed wall or window in the hotel's lobby, with tree branches, snow and other debris piled on the floor.

The heavy snowfall in the 24 hour-period after the quake means that the risk of more avalanches is still high high, CNN meteorologist Brandon Miller said.

Central Italy was rocked by more than 10 earthquakes Wednesday, four of them above magnitude 5, according to the US Geological Survey.

Rescuers were still trying to get to other areas isolated by the avalanche, Gentiloni said, and authorities were hoping to bring power back to as many as 90,000 people who were left in darkness overnight from the extreme weather.

An initial 5.3-magnitude quake hit in the morning near the town of of Amatrice, which was devastated by powerful earthquakes in August. The tremors continued for more than six hours, with one as strong as magnitude 5.7.

While the epicenter was 90 kilometers (about 55 miles) northeast of Rome, the quake was felt in the capital.

CNN's Barbie Nadeau reported from Rome, while CNN's Angela Dewan reported and wrote from London. CNN's Milena Veselinovic, Joshua Berlinger and Brandon Miller contributed to this report. </s> FARINDOLA, Italy — Five people were found alive in the rubble of an Italian hotel Friday, two days after an avalanche tore through the mountain resort and trapped an estimated 30 people inside, rescue crews reported.

“We found five people alive. We’re pulling them out. Send us a helicopter,” a rescuer said over firefighters’ radio, overheard by AP photographer Gregorio Borgia who was making his way on foot toward the disaster site.

The radio report, which first came in at around 11 a.m. (1000 GMT), was repeated three more times, with firefighters saying the survivors were still under the rubble and warning the helicopter might have to wait until they were extracted.

Three helicopters landed at the scene, including an air ambulance, said Borgia and AP Producer Paolo Santalucia, who were turned away by the rescue crews about a kilometre (half a mile) from the remains of the Hotel Rigopiano, located about 30 miles (45 kilometres) from the coastal city of Pescara, at an altitude of about 4,000 feet (1,200 metres).

The ANSA news agency said the number of possible new survivors was six.

About 30 people were trapped inside the luxury Hotel Rigopiano when the avalanche hit on Wednesday afternoon, with two people initially surviving the devastation and reporting the emergency.

Search and rescue teams had maintained the hope of finding survivors even though the avalanche dumped up to five metres (17 feet) of snow on the hotel.

“We are hoping that the ceiling collapsed partially in some places and that someone remained underneath,” rescuer Lorenzo Gagliardi told SKY Tg24.

Two bodies were recovered on the first day of searching and RAI state TV reported two more had been located but not yet removed.

The operations have been hampered by difficulty in accessing the remote hotel. Workers have been clearing a seven-kilometre (5.5-mile) road to bring in heavier equipment but it can handle only one-way traffic.

Alpine corps rescuer Milan Walter told SKY that they were considering whether to ferry more personnel in by helicopter as was done Thursday.

A convoy of rescue vehicles made slow progress to the hotel, blocked by snow piled three metres (10 feet) high in some places, fallen trees and rocks. By late Thursday, only 25 vehicles had arrived, along with 135 rescue workers, and civil protection authorities said part of the night was spent trying to widen the road.

The first rescue teams had arrived on skis early Thursday, and firefighters were dropped in by helicopter. Snowmobiles were also being mobilized.

Days of heavy snowfall had knocked out electricity and phone lines in many central Italian towns and hamlets, and the hotel phones went down early Wednesday, just as the first of four powerful earthquakes struck the region.

It wasn’t clear if the quakes triggered the avalanche. But emergency responders said the force of the massive snow slide collapsed a wing of the hotel that faced the mountain and rotated another off its foundation, pushing it downhill.

“The situation is catastrophic,” said Gagliardi of the Alpine rescue service, who was among the first at the scene. “The mountain-facing side is completely destroyed and buried by snow: the kitchen, hotel rooms, hall.”

One of the survivors reported that the guests had all checked out and were waiting for the road to be cleared to be able to leave. The snow plow scheduled for midafternoon never arrived, and the avalanche hit sometime around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Prosecutors have opened a manslaughter investigation in the tragedy, and among the hypotheses being pursued is whether the avalanche threat wasn’t taken seriously enough, according to Italian media.

Farindola Mayor Ilario Lacchetta said the hotel had 24 guests, four of them children, and 12 employees were onsite at the time of the avalanche.

An Alpine rescue team was the first to arrive on cross-country skis after a seven-kilometre, two-hour journey, finding Giampaolo Parete, a guest who escaped the avalanche when he went to his car to get something, and Fabio Salzetta, a hotel maintenance worker, in a car in the resort’s parking lot.

Parete, whose wife and two children remain among the missing, was taken to a hospital while Salzetta stayed behind with rescuers to help identify where guests might be buried and how crews could enter the buildings, rescuers said.

The mountainous region of central Italy has been struck by a series of quakes since August that destroyed homes and historic centres in dozens of towns and hamlets. A deadly quake in August killed nearly 300. No one died in strong aftershocks in October, largely because population centres had already been evacuated. </s> Rescue workers on skis reached a four-star spa hotel buried by an avalanche in earthquake-stricken central Italy Thursday, reporting no signs of life as they searched for around 30 people believed trapped inside. Three bodies were recovered as heavy vehicles struggled to get to the scene.

Two people escaped the devastation at the Hotel Rigopiano, in the mountains of the Gran Sasso range, and called for help, but it took hours for responders to arrive to the remote zone.

Days of heavy snowfall had knocked out electricity and phone lines in many central Italian towns and hamlets, compounded by four powerful earthquakes that struck the region on Wednesday.

It wasn't immediately clear which if any of the quakes triggered the avalanche. But firefighters said the sheer violence of the snow slide uprooted trees in its wake and wiped out parts of the hotel, leaving only some structures standing and others down the mountainside.

"There are mattresses that are hundreds of meters (yards) away from where the building was," Luca Cari, firefighters' spokesman, told the ANSA news agency.

The hotel in the Abruzzo region is about 30 miles from the coastal city of Pescara, at an altitude of about 3,940 feet. The area, which has been buried under snowfall for days, is located in the broad swath of central Italy between Rieti and Teramo that was jolted by Wednesday's quakes, one of which had a 5.7 magnitude.

Accounts emerged of hotel guests messaging rescuers and friends for help Wednesday, with at least one attempt at raising the alarm rebuffed for several hours.

Giampiero Parete, a chef vacationing at the hotel, called his boss when the avalanche struck and begged for him to mobilize rescue crews. His wife Adriana and two children, Ludovica and Gianfilippo, were trapped inside, employer Quintino Marcella told The Associated Press.

Parete had left the hotel briefly to get some medicine for his wife from their car, and survived as a result.

"He said the hotel was submerged and to call rescue crews," Marcella said, adding that he phoned police and the Pescara prefect's office, but that no one believed him. "The prefect's office said it wasn't true, because everything was OK at the hotel."

Marcella said he insisted, and called other emergency numbers until someone finally took him seriously and mobilized a rescue, starting at 8 p.m., more than two hours later.

When rescuers on skis arrived at the hotel in Florindola in the early morning hours of Thursday, they found just two people alive: Parete and Fabio Salzetta, identified by Italian media as a maintenance worker at the hotel. There were no other signs of life, with rescue crews saying they yelled out but heard no replies, and were using rescue dogs.

Parete was being treated for hypothermia at a hospital in Pescara. The Romanian foreign ministry reported three Romanian citizens missing in the hotel — an adult and two children; they were believed to be Parete's family.

Video shot by teams entering the still-standing parts of the hotel showed huge piles of filthy snow and debris piled up inside the corridors, stairwells and the indoor pool area, having slammed through the outer walls of the building. The audio is silent except for the steps of the cameraman. The largest wall of snow shown was in the pool area, where plastic lounge chairs were flipped on their sides and Christmas decorations still dangled from the ceiling.

The bar area appeared flooded, with nearby cracked skylights covered with snow outside.

Aerial video shot by helicopter crews showed rescue workers on top of the snow-covered hotel, digging holes down to try to get in.

Civil protection authorities said that around 30 people were missing. By Thursday afternoon, three bodies had been removed. Civil protection officials said the risk of further avalanches was factoring into the search effort.

Premier Paolo Gentiloni, arriving at the civil protection headquarters in the area at midday Thursday, sought to deflect criticism of the rescue efforts and urged authorities to redouble efforts to reach people isolated by the quakes and snow, which had dumped as much as 3 meters (10 feet) in some places.

Residents have been complaining for days that they have been without electricity and phone service and have been house-bound because of what Gentiloni called a "record snowfall."

"I ask everyone if possible to multiply their efforts," Gentiloni said. "I ask politicians to show sobriety respecting the difficulty of the situation and the commitment of civil and military crews who are responding."

The buried hotel was just one of several rescues underway: Video footage from the Italian financial police force showed a gray-haired man being led to safety by rescuers through a path dug out of deep snow elsewhere else in the region.

Snow continued to fall Thursday with reports of people being isolated in many places. Daiana Nguyen, a resident of a town in the province of Teramo, told SKY TG24 that 3 meters (about 10 feet) of snow had fallen and that people were "completely isolated."

"They talk about sending in the army: Thirty to 40 men came with shovels. We need heavy machinery!" she said.

The timing of the avalanche Wednesday remained unclear, but the hotel posted a notice on its Facebook page that its phones were down around 9 a.m. following the first of Wednesday's quakes.

Marcella, a restaurant owner on the nearby coast, said he received the call from Parete, his chef, at around 5:30 p.m. He reported that all of the guests had checked out and were waiting for the roads to be cleared on Wednesday afternoon when the avalanche struck. Initially the road was to be cleared by 3 p.m., but that was delayed until 7 p.m.

The mountainous region of central Italy has been struck by a series of quakes since August that destroyed homes and historic centers in dozens of towns and hamlets. A deadly quake in August killed nearly 300, while no one died in the strong aftershocks in October largely because population centers had already been evacuated.

On Tuesday, the hotel posted photos of the recent snowfall, calling it "a dream Tuesday. Snow is giving us spectacular scenes." </s> Italian rescue workers have found the dead body of a man in the wreckage of the hotel in central Italy that was buried in an avalanche last week, the Italian fire service said on Sunday, with 23 people were still missing as the search operation continues.

"At Hotel Rigopiano, at 1645 CET, the fire brigade located the dead body of one of the missing people," the fire service said in a Tweet.

The death toll stands at six, with 23 people still missing, Paolo Molinari from the Civil Protection agency said.

Nine people, including four children, were pulled alive from the piles of rubble and snow on Saturday.

The luxury Hotel Rigopiano, located at the foot of a mountain chain in the central Italian region of Abruzzo, was hit on Wednesday by an avalanche caused by an earthquake.

An earlier statement from the national fire service said the number of people missing had risen to 24 after a rescued person said that a hotel employee, of Senegalese origin, was inside the building at the moment of the avalanche.

"Operations continue, both inside and outside the hotel, there is no change in the numbers (of saved and dead people)," fire brigade spokesman Luca Cari said later.

An official from the national protection agency told reporters that efforts were being made to find alternative routes into the hotel.

Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said on Sunday his government would work to find ways to give the national bodies involved in emergency and reconstruction operations more power.

"We must be faster, and to do so we have to give more effective powers," he said in an interview on state television RAI, adding that these operations could not be dragged down by bureaucracy. He said the government had to find a way to fight against delays and corruption.

Survivors said they ate snow, some dirty, to quench their thirst as they spent days in the dark, trapped in narrow corners of the hotel's rooms after walls and ceilings had collapsed.

Nine of the 11 survivors are still hospitalized in the nearby city of Pescara, with some of them expected to leave hospital as soon as Monday.

Some rescue workers said they did not rule out finding more survivors, almost four days after the disaster.

Emanuele Cherubini, a helicopter paramedic, told Reuters that the hotel "is full of places to shelter in ... so if someone had the good fortune to find one of those places with an air pocket..."

He said saving three children was a very moving experience.

Major Marco Amoriello said rescue efforts were continuing, despite the difficult weather conditions and forecasts which were "not looking good".

"We certainly won't be stopping because of that," Amoriello said.

Around 120,000 tonnes of snow, the equivalent of about 4,000 lorries, covered much of what was left of the hotel, a rescue official told Sky TG24 TV.

"Thank you for being close, and for the real help you are bringing," said Pope Francis on Sunday at his weekly Angelus audience, referring to those involved in the rescue and relief operations and asking people to pray for them and the families of the victims.

Towns in the snowbound region of Abruzzo, one of the areas devastated by the deadly earth tremors of recent months, are now suffering from the poor weather, with thousands of people still without electricity and phone connections. </s> Rescue workers in the central Italian region of Abruzzo, fearful about plummeting night-time temperatures, were in a race against time Thursday searching for survivors after an avalanche of snow, ice and mud flattened a resort hotel with up to 30 guests and staff members inside.

Three bodies were recovered in the piles of debris, but hopes of finding people alive were hampered by the agonizingly slow process of getting heavy equipment to the scene.

"The sun is starting to set here and the temperatures are dropping," said Giovanni Bianchi, a commander with Italy's civil protection. "The worry is that if there's a survivor we haven't found yet, they could risk freezing."

As the recovery effort dragged on and no sounds were heard from the pile of snow and rubble, Abruzzo Alpine rescuer Antonio Crocetta told the Italian news agency ANSA that "there are many dead."

The Hotel Rigopiano in the town of Farindola was ripped from its foundation and almost completely covered by a wall of snow and debris up to 35 feet tall, triggered by a series of earthquakes that shook the region Wednesday.

Heavy snowfall kept ambulances from approaching within 5 miles of the property. Some rescue workers arrived by foot, snowmobile and helicopter, local media reported.

Workers were able to access parts of the structure and documented hallways crammed with snow, ice and debris, along with the remnants of festive decorations.

One rescue worker who spoke on local TV station RAI said there was no sign of life in the decimated hotel. Antonio Di Marco, president of the provincial government, said on social media that two people were found alive.

One of them, Giampaolo Parete, a 38-year-old tourist, said he was saved because he left the hotel to retrieve something from his car parked outside. His wife and two children were inside the building, he said.

Premier Paolo Gentiloni urged authorities to redouble rescue efforts as he sought to deflect criticism. He told reporters Thursday that the priority is to reach all isolated towns and hamlets buried under snowfall for days before being jolted by the powerful quakes Wednesday.

Residents have been complaining of being left without electricity because of what Gentiloni called a “record snowfall.” Criticism has also come in about the response time to reach the buried hotel.

"We have been abandoned by everyone!” marveled one resident from the province of Teramo, Daiana Nguyen, on Sky TG24. “They talk about sending in the army: Thirty to 40 men came with shovels. We need heavy machinery.”

Nguyen said people have been stuck in their homes for days.

“Help, we’re dying of cold,” one couple wrote rescuers, according to the ANSA news agency. Another man, identified by news reports as Fabio Salzetta, sent a text message saying he escaped with a maintenance worker, but that others were trapped inside.

Corriere della Sera quoted the message as saying: “Some walls were knocked down.” And: “I’m outside with a maintenance worker but you can’t see anything of the hotel, there’s only a wall of snow in front of me.”

Wednesday’s earthquakes did not directly impact Farindola, but the temblors apparently unsettled snow on the slopes of the majestic Gran Sasso, a 9,554-foot-tall peak that dominates the region.

Because of its proximity to Rome, Italy’s capital and largest city, the area around the Gran Sasso is popular with tourists on day trips or overnight excursions.

The weather in the area had been particularly good for skiing in recent days — cold and crisp with heavy snowfall. Before the avalanche, staff members at the four-star hotel tweeted: “A dream Tuesday at Rigopiano … the snow is giving us a spectacular panorama.”

Gilberto Petrucci, municipal assessor for the nearby town of Penne, said the entire region is suffering.

“We’re on our knees in the communities around here, we can’t take much more,” Petrucci said. He added that heavy snow has isolated Penne’s 13,000 residents from other cities.

Authorities in the area closed schools and most non-essential business until at least Monday in the wake of the earthquakes and the avalanche. Freezing temperatures and snowfall are forecast until the weekend.

Wednesday’s earthquakes — at least a dozen that measured between magnitude 5.1 and 5.7 — were the third round of temblors in Abruzzo in five months. The region is still recovering from a series of earthquakes in August that killed more than 200 people. In Amatrice, close to the epicenter of the latest quakes, the Renaissance-era bell tower at the church of Sant-Agostino collapsed after being severely damaged in last year’s disaster.

The latest quakes left several hundred people homeless and cut electricity to more than 100,000 homes in the region.
Italian emergency crews rescue 10 people, including four children, from 16½ feet of snow and wreckage from the luxury Hotel Rigopiano following yesterday's Gran Sasso mountain avalanche. Searchers find four bodies, while families of at least 16 people still missing wait for news.