Buildings crumble as 6.6 quake rocks Italy

ROME, Italy (AP) — A powerful earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.6 has rocked the same area of central and southern Italy hit by a quake in August and a pair of aftershocks last week, sending already quake-damaged buildings crumbling after a week of temblors that have left thousands homeless.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or deaths. Residents already rattled by a constant trembling of the earth rushed into piazzas and streets after being roused from bed by Sunday’s 7:40 a.m. quake. Many people still had been sleeping

in cars or evacuated to shelters or hotels in other areas after a pair of strong jolts last Wednesday.

Television images showed nuns rushing out of their church and into the main piazza in Norcia as the clock tower appeared about to crumble.

The mayor of quake-hit Ussita said a huge cloud of smoke erupted from the crumbled buildings.

“It’s a disaster, a disaster!” Mayor Marco Rinaldi told the ANSA news agency. “I was sleeping in the car and I saw hell.”

Another hard-hit city, Castelsantangelo sul Nera, also suffered new damage. In Arquata del Tronto, which had been devastated by the Aug. 24 earthquake that killed nearly 300 people, Arquata Mayor Aleandro Petrucci said, “There are no towns left.” “Everything came down,” he said. The quake was felt throughout the Italian peninsula, with reports as far north as Bolzano and as far south as Bari. Residents rushed into the streets in Rome, where ancient palazzi shook, swayed and lurched for a prolonged spell.

The head of the civil protection authority in the March region, Cesare Spuri, said there have been reports of buildings collapsing in many cities.

“We are trying to understand if people are under the rubble,” Spuri said.

In Norcia, nuns knelt in prayer and a firefighter appealed to a priest to help maintain calm among dozens of residents gathered there, including some in wheelchairs.

The church, which had withstood the August earthquake and last week’s aftershocks, was still standing, but television pictures showed piles of stone had accumulated at the bottom of one wall. One stone was thrown meters into the center of the piazza, illustrating the quake’s force.

“We have to keep people calm. Prayer can help. I don’t want people to go searching for family members,” the firefighter appealed as cameras from SKY TG24 filmed.

The European-Mediterranean Seismological Center put the magnitude at 6.6 or 6.5 with an epicenter 132 kilometers northeast of Rome and 67 kilometers east of Perugia, near the epicenter of last week’s temblors. The US Geological Survey put the magnitude at 6.6.

The German Research Center for Geosciences put the magnitude at 6.5 and said it had a depth of 10 kilometers, a relatively shallow quake near the surface but in the norm for the quake-prone Apennine Mountain region.