As many as eight people have been found alive after being buried under debris and snow following an avalanche in Italy that buried the Hotel Rigopiano in the Abruzzo region.
The survivors are yet to be brought out, but rescue teams are in contact with them.
“We found five people alive. We're pulling them out. Send us a helicopter,” a rescuer said over firefighters' radio.
“They are alive and we are talking to them” Luca Cari, a spokesman for the national fire brigade told Reuters from the scene. Eight survivors were found, AP later reported.
One of the survivors is a young girl, Italy’s Deputy Interior Minister Filippo Bubbico said, speaking in the nearby town of Penne, where he is monitoring the rescue for the government.
Rescuers are using shovels to dig into tons of snow and rubble in a rescue mission that has been greatly hampered by lack of access due to the extent of the snow cover.
Four people are confirmed to have died, and about 20 remain missing.
Workers have been clearing over five miles of road to bring in heavy equipment, but so far the road can only take one-way traffic.
The disaster struck the hotel in central Italy late on Wednesday afternoon amid a driving snowstorm, just hours after four earthquakes with a magnitude above 5 rattled the area.
More than 30 people, including four children, were in the building when the avalanche crashed into it, officials said. The force of the snow reduced much of it to rubble and spread debris across the valley floor.
As much as 5 metres (16 ft) of snow covered much of what is left of the hotel.
The first rescuers on the scene arrived on skis early on Thursday morning, while firefighters were dropped in by helicopter.
“The situation is catastrophic,” said Marshall Lorenzo 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 leave. The snow plough scheduled for mid-afternoon never arrived, and the avalanche hit at around 5.30pm on Wednesday, according to the Associated Press.
Prosecutors have now opened a manslaughter investigation in the tragedy. One line of enquiry is whether the avalanche threat was not deemed serious, the Italian media has reported.
