John Bacon

USA TODAY

Rescuers digging out an Italian hotel buried by an avalanche discovered three puppies that survived for five days, raising hopes for more than 20 people still missing in the wall of snow.

Search teams have been working around the clock since Wednesday, when up to 16 feet of snow careened down a mountain and engulfed the Rigopiano Hotel near the resort town of Farindola. Central Italy had been slammed with up to three feet of falling snow when a series of severe earthquakes rocked the region, triggering the avalanche.

“They just started barking very softly,” Sonia Marini, one of the rescuers, told the Associated Press. “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.”

The pups were born last month to Lupo and Nuvola, dogs in residence at the hotel that fled when the avalanche hit and were found the next day. The discovery of their shaggy Abruzzo sheepdog pups means pockets of air could remain in the collapsed, luxury hotel.

"It's an important sign of life, which gives us hope," firefighter Fabio Jerman told Agence France-Presse.

Four quakes rock central Italy in massive snowstorm

Eleven people have been rescued. Nine of them were pulled from the snow on Saturday, including four children. The survivors told of being trapped in tight, dark spaces amid snow and rubble, eating snow and hoping to be found.

But 23 people remain unaccounted for, and a seventh body was pulled from the wreckage Monday. Rescuers were drilling, digging and sometimes scratching by hand in efforts to peer into rooms that might not have been crushed by more than 50,000 tons of snow and debris.

"It's a race against time," fire service spokesman Luca Cari said Monday. "We know we need to go fast, but it's not an easy working environment."

Prosecutors investigating the disaster said Wednesday that a hotel official had emailed local authorities before the avalanche asking for assistance in evacuating the hotel. Hotel manager Bruno Di Tommaso described a "worrisome situation" and said "clients were terrified" because roads blocked by the heavy snow made it impossible to leave, according to the Italian news service ANSA.

Local authorities told Di Tommaso that help would be sent that night, but the avalanche hit at around 4:30 p.m. local time, ANSA said.