Rescuers continue work to free survivors in avalanche-hit hotel

Emergency crews are continuing their search for more survivors in an avalanche-crushed hotel in Italy after pulling out four people from the rubble overnight.

The operation to bring four more survivors to the hospital raised to at least nine the number of people found alive in the rubble of Wednesday's avalanche.

Some 30 people were inside the Hotel Rigopiano in central Italy's snow-covered Gran Sasso mountain range at the time of the snow slide.

Two other people escaped the devastation just before the avalanche struck, including Giampiero Parete, a chef holidaying with his family who first sounded the alarm by calling his boss. He was reunited with his wife and two children on Saturday after they were among the first to be located and extracted from the debris.

"Thank you everyone from my heart," Mr Parete wrote on Facebook. "Big hugs."

Firefighter spokesman Alberto Maiolo said four bodies had been found in the rubble, in addition to the four people pulled out alive overnight.

"We are still working, we are verifying the signals we have and continuing our activities to verify if there are other people and when we will be able to pull them out," Mr Maiolo said on Saturday.

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