Adorable Puppies Survive Fatal Avalanche After Being Trapped For 5 Days

Credit: Hotel Rigopiano

In what turned out to be a fatal avalanche in Abruzzo, Italy, a bit of good news emerged from the incident that left 29 people dead in Hotel Rigopiano. The resort hotel collapsed after a massive avalanche hit the building and trapped nearly 40 people inside for several days.

Five days after the avalanche hit the hotel, search and rescue teams came across a beacon of hope for those left undiscovered. Despite all odds, 3 one and a half month old Abruzzo Sheepdogs were found alive in the hotel’s boiler room huddled together. The dogs belonged to the hotel and had become popular on Facebook, and many offered their condolences when it was presumed that they had all died in the avalanche.

Credit: Vigili del Fuoco

When the team was sifting through the rubble around where the puppies were trapped, they heard something distinct underneath the collapsed pieces of building. Sonia Marini, a member of the Forestry Corps which worked tirelessly to rescue people at the scene, told AP,

“They just started barking very softly. In fact, it was hard to find them right away because they were hidden. Then we heard this very tiny bark and we saw them from a little hole the firefighters had opened in the wall. Then we expanded the hole and we pulled them out.”

Credit: Alessandro Di Meo/ANSA via AP

After five days of being without resources like food, water, and light, the puppies were found to be in miraculously good health. The team was aware that the puppies, along with their parents Lupo and Nuvola, were among the victims left in the building but hope that they would be found alive had dwindled as the days went on.

Credit: Hotel Rigopiano

In what can only be considered another miracle, both parents were also found alive a few days before their babies. Though the team expected to find them in the building with their puppies, the pair had actually escaped the hotel during the natural disaster and fled to a nearby town, where they were discovered.

The puppies survived in an air pocket for all those days after an avalanche of 60,000 tons of snow, rocks, and uprooted trees came crashing down on the locale. Though it’s unclear if any other puppies from the same litter were found dead, these 3 provided a small beacon of hope to those still searching for humans. The death count ended at 29, but at least 9 people were pulled out alive throughout the rescue process.

Credit: Vigili del Fuoco

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