Reporting from Rome Times Staff Writers — A powerful earthquake rocked a mountainous region of central Italy early today, killing at least 92 people, trapping victims under flattened buildings and leaving thousands of residents homeless, officials and news agencies said.
The temblor, measured at a magnitude of between 5.8 and 6.3 on the Richter scale, knocked residents out of their beds about 3:30 a.m. in the medieval town of L'Aquila, about 75 miles from Rome.
After the shaking finally subsided, buildings that had stood for hundreds of years lay in ruins, cries for help could be heard from beneath the rubble and thousands of people were out in the streets bracing for aftershocks.
Throughout the morning, rescuers dug frantically through twisted metal and shattered masonry to reach trapped victims. Among the collapsed buildings was a student dormitory, and L'Aquila's cathedral and the dome of another church were also reported damaged. Television news footage showed a four-story structure that had pancaked.
"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," one of the dormitory's students, 22-year-old Luigi Alfonsi, told the Associated Press. "I was in bed -- it was like it would never end as I heard pieces of the building collapse around me."
Residents covered in blood and dust were removed from fallen homes on stretchers. Ambulances took the injured to local hospitals, but news reports said that only one or two operating theaters were in use, with others rendered too unstable and dangerous by the quake.
The death toll, which stands at 92, according to Italian news agency Ansa, is expected to rise as more bodies are found.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi declared a state of emergency and canceled a trip to Moscow in order to deal with the disaster.
It was the deadliest earthquake to hit Italy, which has a history of seismic activity, since a 1997 temblor that killed 10 people and damaged the historic basilica in Assisi as well as priceless works of art.
Monday's quake struck in a region known as the Abruzzo, a scenic, hilly area popular with tourists because of its villages and churches dating back to the Middle Ages. Authorities appealed to visitors to refrain from going out to the region so as not to hamper rescue and relief work.
The epicenter was near L'Aquila, but neighboring towns have also been hit.
"We are on our knees," an unidentified man in the nearby town of Paganica told the Sky TG24 news channel. "We are saved but who knows how many are buried."
