News | Sunday, 11 October 2009

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Maltese couple lose family in Messina tragedy

Karl Stagno-Navarra
As Italy respected a day of official mourning for the 31 victims who died in the landslide that destroyed the village of Gampilieri, found in the Sicilian province of Messina, a Maltese woman and her husband spent the day digging through the debris in search of two young boys, who remain missing.
Sarah Caruana and her husband Antonio Scionti hurriedly left Malta last week, in a desperate attempt to find their relatives alive.
Antonio arrived in Gampilieri to find rescuers pull out the corpses of his father and sister from beneath the rubble of what once was their house on the hills of Giampilieri.
Salvatore Scionti and his daughter Maria Letizia were buried yesterday in a state funeral held at the Messina Cathedral. But it was also heartbreaking for Sarah Caruana and her husband to remain at the site to recover the missing bodies of six-year-old Lorenzo and four-year-old Francesco, who were swept out of their beds and buried under tonnes of rubble as their house was demolished by the landslide.
Giampilieri has been described as a ghost town, as all the residents have been evacuated and sent to hotels, while Sarah and Antonio reportedly spend their nights digging with their bare hands through the debris hoping to find the two missing boys, together with civil protection and Red Cross volunteers.
Sarah and Antonio, who work for a food packaging company in Burmarrad, have taken special leave from work and spent €600 each for a one-way ticket to Catania, but money is running out and are depending on other relatives for accommodation and cell phone credit.
Contacted by MaltaToday, Sarah Caruana explained that they are going through a dramatic trauma and are hoping to recover from the horrific scenes they have witnessed in Giampieri.

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