'She's alive!': Dramatic moment a ten-year-old girl is pulled from the rubble after 17 HOURS trapped upside down in Italian debris of earthquake that killed 159 people and 'wiped towns off the map'

The child was hauled to safety by rescuers who shouted 'she's alive' as they carried her from the ruins of a building in the devastated central Italian town of Pescara del Tronto. 


Footage shows just the dust-covered legs of the youngster as emergency crews tried desperately to free her from the rubble. It was a brief moment of joy on a day in which at least 159 people were killed in the region following a 6.2-magnitude quake in the early hours of the morning. She had spent about 17 hours wedged in a collapsed building in what was once a picturesque hamlet. Incredibly, she did not appear to have suffered serious injuries. The frantic search for survivors of the earthquake was continuing tonight as witnesses likened the hellish scenes to 'Dante's inferno' - and shocking pictures showed how four towns were almost wiped off the map.