The Rocky Mountain Collegian

Issue date: 4/7/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Gregorio Borgia - Associated Press A statue of St. Joseph and baby Jesus is seen inside a damaged church in the village of St. Elia central Italy following a strong earthquake, Monday. A powerful earthquake knocked down whole blocks of buildings in the country's deadliest quake in nearly three decades, officials said.

L'AQUILA, Italy - A powerful earthquake in mountainous central Italy knocked down whole blocks of buildings early Monday as residents slept, killing more than 150 people in the country's deadliest quake in nearly three decades. Tens of thousands were homeless and 1,500 were injured.

Premier Silvio Berlusconi, speaking by telephone with one of the TV networks of his media empire, said more than 150 people were dead and more than 1,500 people injured in the quake, which struck near the medieval town of L'Aquila, nestled in the Apennine mountains, before dawn.

The quake felled whole blocks of buildings in L'Aquila and the surrounding area early Monday as residents slept.

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.

As midnight approached, rescuers pulled a scared-looking dog with a bleeding paw out of the dormitory rubble. Relatives and friends of the missing stood wrapped in blankets or huddled under umbrellas in the rain as rescuers pulled out pieces of what seemed like an armoire, a smashed chair, photographs, wallets and diaries but none of the young people for whom they were searching.

The relatives, sobbing or grim-faced, refused to talk to reporters.

But elsewhere in L'Aquila, firefighters reported pulling a 21-year-old woman and a 22-year-man, both of them Italian, from what was an apartment building where many students rented flats. The building's five stories had pancaked into one slab or concrete.

Outside the half-collapsed building, part of the University of L'Aquila, tearful young people huddled together, 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 Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance buildings.

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