These refugees live on £2 per day. They've donated what they have to help Italy's earthquake victims

People living in shelter give up their allowance in 'gesture of solidarity'

Refugees living on very small means donated their personal allowance to helping the earthquake victims (Recosol Gioiosa Ionica / Sprar)

A group of desperately poor refugees living on €2.50 a day have donated money to help people affected by the “apocalyptic” earthquake which devastated three towns in central Italy.

The 75 asylum-seekers, who are living in a shelter in the south-western town of Gioiosa Ionica, in Calabria, gave up their small allowance in a “symbolic gesture of solidarity”.

They are beneficiaries of the Sprar project (Protection System for Refugees and Asylum Seekers) and rallied together to make the €200 donation.

Project coordinator Giovanni Maiolo said: “They wanted to make a small and symbolic gesture of solidarity with the victims of the terrible earthquake.

“They decided to give up their pocket money, a small amount that is guaranteed for personal expenses, and direct it to the earthquake victims.

“We are trying to figure out how to help them make the payment."

Mr Maiolo said it came “from those who felt welcomed in Italy” who wanted “to somehow reciprocate the solidarity”.

The death toll from the catastrophic disaster has risen to 247.

The mayor of Arquata, Aleandro Petrucci, said: “It’s a disaster. I feel like crying. I’ve never seen such an apocalyptic scene.”

It reduced three towns to rubble after hitting central Italy at around 3.30am local time on Wednesday.

A strong aftershock with a magnitude of 4.7 jolted residents awake at 5.40am on Thursday.

There were cries of relief in Pescara del Tronto, one of three towns to be hit, after a young girl was pulled from the rubble almost 24 hours after the disaster.

"The town isn't here any more," said Sergio Pirozzi, the mayor of Amatrice in northern Lazio, believed to be one of the worst-hit areas, where residents are buried under the debris of collapsed buildings.

The earthquake hit a relatively sparsely populated area on the border between three regions – Umbria, Lazio and Marche, causing damage in all three.

The most badly affected towns were believed to be Accumoli, Amatrice, Posta and Arquata del Tronto, a spokesman for the Italian fire department Luca Cari told Reuters.

Among the victims was an 18-month-old girl whose mother survived a deadly earthquake which struck L'Aquila in 2009, killing 300 people.

Her mother moved away from the area afterwards to try and avoid any other catastrophes.

The news agency ANSA reported that the toddler, Marisol Piermarini, was sleeping in her bed in the family's vacation home in Arquata del Tronto when the quake hit.

Her mother, Martina Turco, survived and is being treated in a hospital after being pulled from the rubble.