8 found alive in hotel rubble

ROME. — Eight people, including two children, have been found alive in a ski resort hotel in central Italy that was flattened by an avalanche on Wednesday. Five survivors, including a young girl and a woman thought to be her mother, were flown by helicopter to a hospital in Pescara. They were suffering from hypothermia, officials told reporters in the town of Penne, from where the rescue effort is being co-ordinated. Rescuers are digging to free the others.

“Finding these people gives us further hope there are other survivors,” said Titti Postiglione, a civil protection agency official. — The Guardian/AP.