Dog pulled from Italian earthquake rubble after 24 hours

ABC
Nov 02, 2016, updated Oct 01, 2020

No deaths have been reported but several people were injured, one seriously. Photo: Getty

A dog has been rescued by firefighters from rubble after a recent earthquake in central Italy, more than 24 hours after being buried.

A magnitude-6.6 earthquake struck the town of Norcia on Sunday morning (local time), injuring some 20 people.

Rescuers spotted the canine on Monday afternoon, guided by their sniffer dog, during efforts to clear rubble after extensive damage to the town.

The dog was in “good condition”, according to Italian animal rights organisation ENPA, with no fractures found in initial vet scans.

The rescuers said the dog had no microchip, but they were “confident” of quickly reuniting it with its owner.

There were no deaths or critical injuries from Sunday’s earthquake, as most people from the area had fled their homes after repeated tremors in the region over the past two months.

Weakened by the repeated powerful jolts, many of Norcia’s churches, monasteries and chapels were wrecked on Sunday.

The United States Geological Survey said the quake was centred 68 kilometres east-southeast of Perugia at a depth of 1.5 kilometres.

Geoscience Australia seismologist Hugh Glanville told the ABC that at that depth, the earthquake was very shallow and had the potential to cause anything nearby to be catastrophically damaged.

In September, Romeo the dog was also pulled alive from a pile of earthquake rubble, 10 days after towns in central Italy were levelled by a magnitude-6.2 quake.