Quake hits Italy, leaves many dead

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

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A powerful earthquake in mountainous central Italy knocked down whole blocks of buildings yesterday as residents slept, killing at least 92 people in the country's deadliest quake in nearly three decades, officials said. The quake has left tens of thousands people homeless and other 1,500 injured.

Ambulances screamed through the medieval city L'Aquila as firefighters with dogs worked feverishly to reach people trapped in fallen buildings, including a dormitory where half a dozen university students were believed still inside, according to The Associated Press. Outside the half-collapsed building, tearful young people huddled together, wrapped in blankets, some still in their slippers after being roused from sleep by the quake. Dozens managed to escape as the walls fell around them.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi declared a state of emergency and cancelled a trip to Russia so he could go to the city, the capital of the Abruzzo region, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) northeast of Rome. "I want to say something important, no one will be abandoned to his fate," Agence France-Presse quoted Italian premier as saying.

"Some towns in the area have been virtually destroyed in their entirety," a somber Gianfranco Fini, speaker of the lower house of parliament, said before the chamber observed a moment of silence. The death toll was likely to rise, civil protection chief Guido Bertolaso said as rescue crews clawed through the debris of fallen homes.

’Like a bomb’

In the historic center of the city, a wall of the 13th century Santa Maria di Collemaggio church collapsed and the bell tower of the Renaissance San Bernadino church also fell. The 16th castle housing the Abruzzo National Museum was damaged. "I woke up hearing what sounded like a bomb," said Angela Palumbo, 87, said as she walked on a street in L'Aquila. "We managed to escape with things falling all around us. Everything was shaking, furniture falling," she told Reuters.

Condolences poured in from around the world, including from President Barack Obama, Turkish President Abdullah Gül and also Pope Benedict XVI. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and French leader Nicolas Sarkozy expressed their sympathies in the messages to Berlusconi.

The EU, Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Israel and Russia immediately stepped forward with offers of aid, officials told the ANSA agency. But Italian civil protection head Agostino Miozzo said such aid was not immediately needed.