By ANTARA,
L`Aquila : A powerful earthquake struck a swathe of central Italy as residents slept on Monday morning, killing more than 90 people and flattening whole towns.
At least 50,000 people have been made homeless, officials said.
Most of the dead were in L`Aquila, a 13th-century mountain city about 100 km (60 miles) east of Rome, and surrounding towns and villages in the Abruzzo region.
“Some towns in the area have been virtually destroyed in their entirety,” Gianfranco Fini, speaker of the lower house of parliament, said as MPs observed a moment of silence.
Ansa news agency, quoting rescue workers, said the death toll had reached 92 nearly 12 hours after the quake struck.
National Civil Protection head Guido Bertolaso confirmed that more than 70 people were dead but said official figures would not be updated before families were informed.
Civil Protection Department officials said up to 50,000 people may have been made homeless in some 26 cities and towns. More than 1,500 people were injured and thousands of houses, churches and buildings collapsed or were damaged.
“I woke up hearing what sounded like a bomb,” said L`Aquila resident Angela Palumbo, 87.
“We managed to escape with things falling all around us. Everything was shaking, furniture falling. I don`t remember ever seeing anything like this in my life.”
Rubble was strewn throughout the city of 68,000 people and nearby towns, blocking roads and hampering rescue teams. Old women wailed and residents armed with nothing but bare hands helped firefighters and rescue workers tear through the rubble.
In the small town of Onna, 10 people were killed, said a Reuters photographer who saw a mother and her infant daughter carried away in the same coffin.
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi cancelled a trip to Moscow and declared a national emergency, which would free up funds for aid and rebuilding. Pope Benedict said he was saying a special prayer for the victims.
Older houses and buildings made of stone, particularly in outlying villages that have not seen much restoration, collapsed like straw houses.
Hospitals appealed for help from doctors and nurses throughout Italy. The smell of gas filled some parts of the mountain towns and villages as mains ruptured.
Berlusconi told reporters in L`Aquila that tent cities and field hospitals would be set up there and hotels on the Adriatic coast would be requisitioned to shelter the homeless.
Residents of Rome, which is rarely hit by seismic activity, were woken by the quake, which rattled furniture and swayed lights in most of central Italy. It struck shortly after 3:30 a.m. (0130 GMT) and registered between 5.8 and 6.3 magnitude.
“When the quake hit, I rushed out to my father`s house and opened the main door and everything had collapsed. My father is surely dead. I called for help but no one was around,” said Camillo Berardi in L`Aquila.
A resident standing by an apartment block that was reduced to the height of an adult said: “This building was four storeys high.”
In another part of the city, residents tried to hush the wailing of grief to try to pinpoint the sound of a crying baby.
Part of a university residence and a hotel collapsed in L`Aquila and at least one person was still trapped.
At least four Romanesque and Renaissance churches and a 16th century castle were damaged, the Culture Ministry said.
Part of the nave of the Basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio, one of the area`s most famous churches, collapsed. To the north, the belltower of the lavish Renaissance Basilica of San Bernardino also crumbled.
Bridges and highways in the mountainous area were closed as a precaution.
Weeks before the disaster, an Italian scientist had predicted a major quake around L`Aquila, based on concentrations of radon gas around seismically active areas.
Seismologist Gioacchino Giuliani was reported to police for “spreading alarm” and was forced to remove his findings from the Internet.
Civil Protection reassured locals at the end of March that tremors being felt were “absolutely normal” for a seismic area.
The quake was the latest and strongest in a series to hit the L`Aquila area on Sunday and Monday.
Earthquakes can be particularly dangerous in parts of Italy because so many buildings are centuries-old. About 2,700 people died in an earthquake in the south in 1980.