On this day, an enormous avalanche completely buried under 20 metres of snow the little village of Bergemoletto in the Stura valley in the province of Cuneo in the Italian Alps. Trapped in a stable beneath the snow were Anna Maria Rocchia (40), her daughter Margherita (11), her son Antonio (5) and her sister-in-law Anna (24). After a few days of fruitless digging, the rescuers gave up, convinced that there was no hope. Then, on 24th April, Anna Maria’s brother dreamt that his sister was still alive and the following morning he and his brother started to search for the buried stable. Unbelievably, 37 days after the avalanche, they found the three women still alive but in terrible condition, having lived on goat’s milk in a tiny cramped space, in the freezing cold, surrounded by rotting corpses. The young boy had died from fever after only a few days.
