Toll from Italy avalanche climbs to 16 as hopes diminish

Farindola: Hopes faded on Tuesday that any more survivors of the devastating avalanche that buried an Italy hotel would be found after the death toll more than doubled to 16.

Meanwhile, Italy's central Abruzzo region and its rescue crews were faced their second tragedy in a week when a helicopter crashed at a nearby ski resort, killing six people.

The twin disasters, which followed a series of earthquakes and weeks of heavy snow, have brought the region to its knees. Thousands of people have been without electricity for over a week and emergency crews have been working around the clock.

The helicopter was ferrying an injured skier off the slopes of the Campo Felice ski area when it slammed into a mountainside buried in thick fog. Five crew members and the skier were killed.

Emergency workers at the center coordinating rescue efforts at the avalanche-entombed Hotel Rigopiano rushed to the chopper crash site about 100 kilometers away, and those on the ground at the scene hugged one another in solidarity.

The death toll from the Jan. 18 avalanche, meanwhile, climbed to 16 today with the discovery of a half-dozen more bodies. Thirteen people remained unaccounted for. Nine people previously had been pulled out alive from the rubble, the last one early Saturday.

Firefighters' spokesman Alberto Maiolo said search crews aided by excavators finally were able to penetrate the central part of the hotel for the first time and found bodies in the bar and kitchen area. He said there were no signs of life.

"Logically, hopes fade as time passes, but we are continuing to search and trying to do it as quickly as possible," he said.

The first funerals were held today, with crowds gathering under a steady rain outside the hilltop church in Farindola to pay their respects to Alessandro Giancaterino, the hotel's chief waiter.

Giancaterino, one of the first victims pulled from the wreckage, had offered to stay for a double shift on January 18 to spare a colleague from having to make his way to the hotel through the snow, which was two to three meters (six to 10 feet) high in some places.

"He was a great hard worker. He was very professional," said his brother, Massimiliano Giancaterino. "This is the memory that I want to keep of my brother, beyond obviously the private ones that I keep in my heart."