Suspected Rome bank robber foiled by tunnel collapse

An Italian man had to be rescued after becoming trapped in a collapsed tunnel near the Vatican, suspected of being part of a gang burrowing its way to a nearby bank, police said yesterday.

Firefighters spent eight hours digging him out from under a road in the west of Rome, before he was finally freed on Thursday evening and taken to hospital.

"Two people from Naples were arrested for resisting a public official and two, from Rome, for damage" to public property, a police spokesman told AFP.