Word: salaparuta
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When the first tremors began in the parched, rock-ribbed mountains of western Sicily last week, most of the 3,000 people of Salaparuta took refuge on the slopes just below their hilltop town. There, among their goats and grapevines, they waited in the chilly night for the danger to pass. At 3 a.m. the earth rolled again, at first gently, then with a sickening sway. Before their eyes, Salaparuta crumbled apart like a child's sand castle. Within 30 seconds, the nine-century-old vineyard town was little more than dust. Left standing over the moonlit rubble...
Similar scenes of devastation unfold ed elsewhere in a land that has long lived with poverty and the Mafia's cruel rule. Unlike Salaparuta, where all but a few of the villagers had time to flee, scores of people were crushed to death in cascades of masonry in such neighboring towns as Montevago, Gibellina, Santa Margherita di Belice, Salemi and Santa Ninfa. Montevago's lawyer, along with five companions, perished trying to race the tremors in his tiny Fiat. The town's doctor died on his way to save his mother. The earthquake was by far Italy...
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