Europe | 06.04.2009
State of emergency declared after devastating Italian earthquake
Berlusconi has also announced that he has cancelled a planned trip to Moscow to head for the epicenter of the quake, which Interior Minister Roberto Maroni says has claimed the lives of at least 90 people.
"I am leaving for L'Aquila. I have cancelled my trip to Moscow because I think the situation is such that the presence of the head of government at the scene could be useful," Berlusconi told Italian television.
Berlusconi had been due to fly to Moscow for a two-day visit along with 1,000 businessmen, bankers and industry executives.
EU offers aid
Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: The Abruzzo region is under a state of emergency
As emergency services scrambled to find victims trapped under thousands of collapsed homes, the European Union and several countries quickly offered aid to Italy, officials told ANSA news agency.
The EU, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Russia immediately offered aid, said Agostino Miozzo, a public safety chief quoted by the national agency. But he added that it was not immediately needed.
The quake has damaged thousands of buildings and has left as many as 50,000 people homeless.
"Some towns in the area have been virtually destroyed in their entirety," a somber Gianfranco Fini, speaker of the lower house of parliament, said.
The US Geological Survey reported the strength of the quake at 6.3, saying it was centered 95 kilometers (59 miles) north-east of Rome at a depth of 10 kilometers. It struck at 03:32 CET the US Geological Survey said on its Web site.
A magnitude-4.7 aftershock was reported shortly after the quake, which was preceded by two tremors with magnitudes of 3.5 and 3.9, Italian authorities said.
The epicenter of the quake, which was also felt in Rome, was five kilometers outside L'Aquila, a town of 60,000 residents in the Apennine Mountains, Italian public safety officials said.
Main quake follows Sunday evening tremor
The quake came just hours after a 4.6-magnitude tremor shook Italy's north-central region with no reports of damage.
Bildunterschrift: The city of L'Aquila has been devastated by the quake
That quake occurred at 10:20 pm on Sunday near Ravenna in the Emilia-Romagna region and was exceptionally deep at some 28 kilometers, public safety officials told ANSA.
Because of its depth, the tremor was felt over a wide area, notably in the Marche region on the Adriatic coast.
A powerful earthquake in the region claimed 13 lives in 1997 and damaged or destroyed priceless cultural heritage.
Italy is dissected by two fault lines, with around 20 million people at risk from earthquakes.
Past deadly earthquakes in Italy include an October 2002 quake that killed 30 people including 27 pupils and their teacher who were crushed under their schoolhouse in the tiny medieval village of San Giuliano di Puglia.
Twenty-two years earlier, on November 23, 1980, a violent quake struck the southern region of Irpiona near Naples, killing 2,570, injuring 8,850 and displacing 30,000.
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