Three out of four Polish exchange students who survived the earthquake in the Italian region of Abruzzo returned to Poland last night.

A group of young Poles were members of the student exchange programme Socrates Erasmus from the Gdansk Technical University. 

Rescue services say the death toll has now reached 235.

The Polish students were not seriously injured in the disaster. Only one of the girls hurt her foot while leaving the students’ dorms in a hurry as the earthquake hit and  received necessary medical help in Italy. One of the students refused to go back to Poland early and decided to travel to Spain instead.  

“We weren’t aware of what was happening. We run out of the building after the first quake,” said Pawel Wroniszewski. He added that he is glad to be back home and that he “won’t ever go to Italy again”.  

The Polish students were taken away from the endangered region by the Polish embassy. The return tickets for the young Poles were funded by Gdansk Technical University. 

The earthquake measuring over six on the Richter scale destroyed hundreds of buildings in central Italy at 3.30 CET Monday morning. The earthquake’s epicentre was three miles from the city of L’Aquila, in the mountainous region of Abruzzo some 100 kilometres north of Rome. (jm) 

Source: PAP