A survivor of an Italian avalanche says she only learned she had been buried by tons of snow after she was rescued, thinking until then that she had been trapped by one of the many earthquakes that have rattled central Italy in recent months.

Giorgia Galassi tells The Associated Press that she never imagined that an avalanche could have been responsible for the devastation around her in the Hotel Rigopiano. In an interview Wednesday she said: “We didn’t know it until the firefighters told us. We thought the whole time that it was a very strong earthquake.”

Galassi and her boyfriend Vincenzo Forti were two of the nine people pulled out alive from the Jan. 18 avalanche. At least 25 others died, and four remain missing.

(AP)