The AP reports that the "incredible" discovery boosted the spirits of rescue crews:



From very early on, rescue crews knew that at least some people had survived the initial disaster — a few people buried alive sent text messages, according to reports in Italian media on Thursday. 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. 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). 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. 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. 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 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. 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. 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. 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. “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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
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.