The final death toll from an avalanche in central Italy last week is 29, firefighters have said, after the last bodies were pulled out of the rubble of a hotel crushed by the snow. Nine people were recovered alive from the Hotel Rigopiano in the first days of the rescue. Italian avalanche death toll rises as six die in helicopter crash nearby Read moreThe Italian prime minister, Paolo Gentiloni, acknowledged delays and “malfunctioning” in the initial rescue effort, after local authorities brushed off the first alarms about the avalanche. He said more than two metres of snow fell within 72 hours on the isolated hotel, and four earthquakes then struck the region. Prosecutors said postmortems on the first six bodies examined showed most died from the initial physical trauma of the hotel collapsing, with some also showing signs of hypothermia and asphyxiation.

Source: The Guardian January 26, 2017 08:15 UTC