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(AP) -  A powerful earthquake in mountainous
central Italy knocked down whole blocks of buildings early Monday
as residents slept, killing more than 100 people in the country's
deadliest quake in nearly three decades. Tens of thousands were
homeless and 1,500 were injured.


      Civil protection official Roberto Forina said late Monday that
authorities counted more than 100 bodies. 


But he could not confirm
a report by the ANSA news agency that the death toll had reached
150. The Corriere Della Sera newspaper reported more than 250
people were missing.

      The quake felled whole blocks of buildings the medieval city of
L'Aquila and the surrounding area early Monday as residents slept.
It was Italy's deadliest quake in nearly three decades.


      Ambulances screamed through L'Aquila as firefighters with dogs
and a crane worked feverishly to reach people trapped in fallen
buildings, including a university dormitory where a half dozen
students were believed still inside.


      Outside the half-collapsed building, part of the University of
L'Aquila, tearful young people huddled together, wrapped in
blankets, some in their slippers after being roused from sleep by
the quake. 


Dozens managed to escape as the dorm walls fell around
them but hours after the quake, a body of a male student was pulled
from the rubble.


      "We managed to come down with other students but we had to
sneak through a hole in the stairs as the whole floor came down,"
said student Luigi Alfonsi, 22. "I was in bed - it was like it
would never end as I heard pieces of the building collapse around
me."


      "There was water gushing out of broken water pipes, and the
corridor which led to the stairs was partially blocked when a piece
of the wall came down," Alfonsi, his eyes filling with tears and
his hands trembling, told The Associated Press.


      Some 10,000 to 15,000 buildings were either damaged or
destroyed, officials said. L'Aquila Mayor Massimo Cialente said
about 100,000 people were homeless. It was not clear if the mayor's
estimate included surrounding towns.


      The quake also took a severe toll on the city's prized
architectural heritage. L'Aquila was built as a mountain stronghold
during the Middle Ages and has many prized Romanesque, Gothic and
Renaissance buildings.


      Damage to monuments was reported as far away as Rome, where
cracks appeared at the thermal baths built in the 3rd century by
the emperor Caracalla, Culture Ministry official Giuseppe Proietti
said. The damage was not serious, and other Roman monuments
suffered no consequences, he said.


      Parts of many of the ancient churches and castles in and around
L'Aquila have collapsed. Centuries-old churches in many isolated
villages in the area are believed partly collapsed, and damage to
ancient monuments has been reported as far as Rome.


      L'Aquila, capital of the Abruzzo region, was near the epicenter
about 70 miles (110 kilometers) northeast of Rome. It is a
quake-prone region that has had at least nine smaller jolts since
the beginning of April. 


The quake struck at 3:32 a.m. The U.S.
Geological Survey said the big quake was magnitude 6.3, but Italy's
National Institute of Geophysics put it at 5.8 and more than a
dozen aftershocks followed.


      Italy's national police chief Antonio Manganelli said several
arrests have been made for looting. He said those picked up were
"caught while they were stealing from abandoned houses. It's
sad."


      The quake hit 26 towns and cities around L'Aquila, which lies in
a valley surrounded by the Apennine mountains. Castelnuovo, a
hamlet of about 300 people 15 miles (25 kilometers) southeast of
L'Aquila, appeared hard hit, and five were confirmed dead there.
Another small town, Onno, was almost leveled.


      "A few houses have remained standing, but just a few,"
Stefania Pezzopane, provincial president of L'Aquila, told Corriere
della Sera. 


Rescue workers in Onna, population about 250, said the
town was virtually deserted as survivors sought shelter elsewhere.


      The four-star, 133-room Hotel Duca degli Abruzzi in L'Aquila's
historic center was heavily damaged but still standing and it was
not known if there were any casualties, said Ornella De Luca of the
national civil protection agency in Rome. 

"The information is very
fragmentary," she said.


      Premier Silvio Berlusconi declared a state of emergency, freeing
up federal funds to deal with the disaster, and canceled a visit to
Russia so he could deal with the crisis.


      Condolences poured in from around the world, including from
President Barack Obama, Pope Benedict XVI and Abdullah Gul,
president of quake-prone Turkey.


      Slabs of walls, twisted steel supports, furniture and wire
fences were strewn about the streets of L'Aquila, and gray dust
carpeted sidewalks, cars and residents.


      Residents and rescue workers hauled away debris from collapsed
buildings by hand or in an assembly lines, passing buckets.


Firefighters pulled a woman covered in dust from the debris of her
four-story home. Rescue crews demanded quiet as they listened for
signs of life from other people believed still trapped inside.


      Elsewhere, a man dressed only in his underwear wept as he was
pulled from the debris and embraced.


      A body lay on the sidewalk, covered by a white sheet.


      Parts of L'Aquila's main hospital were evacuated because they
were at risk of collapse, and only two operating rooms were in use.
Bloodied victims waited in hospital hallways or in the courtyard
and many were being treated in the open. A field hospital was being
set up.


      In the dusty streets, as aftershocks rumbled through, residents
hugged one another, prayed quietly or frantically tried to call
relatives. Residents covered in dust pushed carts full of clothes
and blankets that they had thrown together before fleeing their
homes.


      "We left as soon as we felt the first tremors," said Antonio
D'Ostilio, 22, as he stood on a street in L'Aquila with a huge
suitcase piled with clothes. "We woke up all of a sudden and we
immediately ran downstairs in our pajamas."


      Evacuees converged on an athletics field on the outskirts of
L'Aquila where a makeshift tent camp was being set up. Civil
protection officials distributed bread and water to people who lay
on the grass next to heaps of their belongings.


      "It's a catastrophe and an immense shock," said resident
Renato Di Stefano, who was moving with his family to the camp as a
precaution. "It's struck in the heart of the city, we will never
forget the pain."


      The Culture Ministry said 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 century castle
housing the Abruzzo National Museum was damaged.


      This was Italy's deadliest quake since Nov. 23, 1980, when one
measuring 6.9-magnitude hit southern regions, leveling villages and
causing some 3,000 deaths.


      Many modern structures in Italy over recent decades have failed
to hold up to the rigors of quakes along Italy's mountainous spine,
or in coastal cities like Naples. Despite warnings by geologists
and architects, some of these buildings have not been retrofitted
for seismic safety.


      Pezzopane, the provincial president, said residents may have
been lulled into complacency because so many smaller quakes had
jolted the area, including two or three earlier in the night.


      "Considering what happened, a bit more concern, more attention
might have saved lives," she said.


      National officials insisted no quake can ever be predicted and
that no evacuation could have been ordered on the basis of the
recent jolts.


      "There is no possibility of making any predictions on
earthquakes. This is a fact in the world's scientific community,"
Civil protection chief Guido Bertolaso told reporters.


      The last major quake to hit central Italy was a 5.4-magnitude
temblor that struck the south-central Molise region on Oct. 31,
2002, killing 28 people, including 27 children who died when their
school collapsed.
      
      

Gallery

A powerful earthquake in mountainous
central Italy knocked down whole blocks of buildings early Monday
as residents slept, killing more than 90 people in the country's
deadliest quake in nearly three decades.

More than 100 dead, 1,500 injured in central Italy quake

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