More than ninety killed in central Italy earthquake - officials

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

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The quake, which was also felt in Rome, had a magnitude of 5.8 and an epicenter some five kilometers (three miles) outside L’Aquila, a town of 60,000 residents in the Apennine Mountains, Italian public safety officials told AFP.      

The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude of the quake was 6.3. 

"Thousands of people (could be left) homeless and thousands of buildings collapsed or damaged," Agostino Miozzo, an official at the Civil Protection Department, told Reuters.

It struck at 3:32 a.m. (0132 GMT) some 95 kilometers (60 miles) northeast of Rome, the U.S. Geological Survey said on its Web site. 

The quake came just hours after a 4.6-magnitude tremor shook Italy’s north-central region with no reports of damage.

That quake occurred at 10:20 p.m. Sunday near Ravenna in the Emilia-Romagna region and was exceptionally deep at some 28 kilometers, public safety officials told ANSA.

Because of its depth, the tremor was felt over a wide area, notably in the Marche region on the Adriatic coast.  

People there felt both earthquakes. A powerful earthquake in the region claimed 13 lives in 1997 and damaged or destroyed priceless cultural heritage.

It was the worst earthquake in terms of deaths to hit Italy since 2002, when 30 children were killed in a school collapse in the south.

But officials said the death toll from this earthquake could be worse because more buildings were damaged.

Italy is criss-crossed by two fault lines, with some 20 million people at risk from earthquakes.

On Nov. 23, 1980, a violent quake struck the southern region of Irpiona near Naples, killing 2,570, injuring 8,850 and displacing 30,000.

Photo: Reuters