Italy quake leaves more than 15,000 homeless

ITALIAN authorities said yesterday they were taking care of more than 15,000 people left homeless by the country’s most powerful earthquake in nearly 40 years.

Although Sunday’s 6.6-magnitude tremor did not result in any deaths, the third powerful quake in just over two months has left thousands of homes in ruins or structurally unsafe and emptied a string of villages and small towns across the country’s mountainous central regions.

The majority of residents of the devastated villages and towns have taken refuge with friends and family as they anxiously await a green light to return to their homes.

But the national civil protection agency said yesterday it was providing assistance to 15,000 people affected by Sunday’s quake, which was so powerful it caused cracks in buildings in Rome, some 120 kilometres away from the epicentre near the Umbrian town of Norcia.

Some 4,000 people from the worst-hit area around Norcia have been sent to hotels on the Adriatic coast with another 500 taken by bus to the inland Lake Trasimeno. Over 10,000 are being put up in sports halls and other temporary facilities, including tents, across Umbria and the neighbouring Marche region.

The quake was Italy’s biggest since a 6.9-magnitude one struck the south of the country in 1980, leaving 3,000 people dead. It has been followed by hundreds of powerful aftershocks feared to have further compromised the safety of buildings in the affected area.