AP Photo Italian firefighters search for survivors after an avalanche buried a hotel near Farindola, central Italy, Thursday. Rescue crews are continuing the painstaking search for some 30 people trapped inside a remote Italian mountain resort flattened by a huge avalanche.

FARINDOLA, Italy (AP) — Rescue crews located up to eight people alive in the kitchen of an avalanche-crushed hotel on Friday, an incredible discovery that boosted spirits two days after the massive snow slide buried around 30 people in the resort.

Video released by rescuers showed a boy, wearing blue snow pants and a matching ski shirt, emerging from the structure and crews mussing his hair in celebration.

Next was a woman with a long ponytail wearing red snow pants. “Brava Brava!” the rescuers cheered. The survivors appeared fully alert and walking on their own. Both were helped down to a stretcher for the helicopter ride out.

“This first news has obviously repaid all the rescuers’ efforts,” deputy interior minister Filippo Bubbico said.

First word of the discovery came at around 11 a.m. (1000 GMT; 5 a.m. EST), news met with exhilaration after at least four people had already been found dead since Thursday.

“We found five people alive. We’re pulling them out. Send us a helicopter,” a rescuer said over firefighters’ radio, overheard by Associated Press journalists who were making their way on foot toward the disaster site.

Later, the number rose to eight people, including two children, Italian news reports said.

Titi Postiglione, operations chief of the civil protection agency, confirmed six people were located, but the numbers were fluid: She said two had been extracted already and crews were working to get another four out of the rubble.

These survivors, she said “can give us a series of indications to help with our intervention plan, information to understand what happened and help direct the search.”

Rescue workers told RAI state television the survivors’ conditions were remarkably good, and that they had survived thanks to an air pocket in the kitchen. They were being flown by helicopter to area hospitals.

About 30 people were trapped inside the luxury Hotel Rigopiano when the avalanche hit on Wednesday afternoon, with two people initially surviving the devastation and calling out for help.

Search and rescue teams had maintained the hope of finding survivors even though the avalanche dumped up to five meters (17 feet) of snow on the hotel.

“We are hoping that the ceiling collapsed partially in some places and that someone remained underneath,” rescuer Lorenzo Gagliardi told SKY TG24.

Two bodies were recovered on the first day of searching and RAI state TV reported two more had been located but not yet removed.

The operations have been hampered by difficulty in accessing the remote hotel. Workers have been clearing a seven-kilometer (5.5-mile) road to bring in heavier equipment but it can handle only one-way traffic.

A convoy of rescue vehicles made slow progress to the hotel, blocked by snow piled three meters (10 feet) high in some places, fallen trees and rocks.

The first rescue teams had arrived on skis early Thursday, and firefighters were dropped in by helicopter. Snowmobiles were also being mobilized.

Days of heavy snowfall had knocked out electricity and phone lines in many central Italian towns and hamlets, and the hotel phones went down early Wednesday, just as the first of four powerful earthquakes struck the region.