Powerful earthquake rattles central Italy in third quake since August

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Italy's most powerful earthquake since 1980, and the third earthquake since August, rocked the central region of the country Sunday morning, leveling historic buildings and sending thousands of residents into the streets.

There were no immediate reports of fatalities, but the head of Italy's civil protection service, Fabrizio Curcio, said about "a dozen" people were injured, at least one seriously.

The number of casualties would have been far higher had the towns in the earthquake area not been largely evacuated on Wednesday, when two smaller tremors hit. Some residents were sleeping in their cars when Sunday's earthquake came.

The quake's epicentre was about 170 kilometres north of Rome, near the Umbrian town of Norcia. It hit at 7:40am local time was measured at 6.5 on the Richter scale by Italy's institute of geophysics and volcanology and 6.6 by the U.S. Geological Survey. No Italian quake since 1980, when the area east of Naples was jolted by an earthquake that killed 3,000, has been stronger.

Tremors were felt in Slovenia, Croatia, Venice and Rome, where residents reported swaying buildings. Rome's subway system was closed so that technicians could check for damage to the tracks. Trond Skarpeteig, an employee of the Norwegian embassy in Rome, said he woke up "by the shaking and sounds of slamming doors…[our] 1937 apartment building rocked like a boat."

Norcia, whose population is about 5,000, appeared to suffer the worst damage. The town's 14th Century Basilica of St. Benedict, a big tourist and pilgrim attraction that was built on the reputed birthplace of the saint, was destroyed.

"It went off like a bomb," Pierluigi Altavilla, Norcia's deputy mayor, told Italy's RAI News 24 network. "We are starting to despair. There are too many quakes now, we can't bear it anymore."

In a Tweet, the Benedictine Monks of Norcia on Sunday morning said "People are trapped in the main square, as nearby buildings may collapse. Trucks are coming to clear a path to safety."

Sunday's disaster came nine weeks after several nearby towns, among them Amatrice, were leveled in the powerful Aug. 24 quake that killed about 300 people; several are still missing. The latest quake inflicted more damage on the few remaining standing structures in Amatrice. Its civic tower, from the 13th Century, collapsed Sunday.

The central Italian mountain spine has seen an unusually high degree of seismic activity since 2009, when a massive earthquake shook L'Aquila, the capital of the Abruzzo region due east of Rome, killing at least 308 people.

The reconstruction efforts have been slow and put enormous strain on Italy's budget when the country when was in deep recession.

Before Sunday's quake, Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi had pledged as much as 3-billion euros for earthquake reconstruction and mitigation efforts in the 2017 budget. His government wants the European Union to exclude that spending from the budget deficit calculations that are overseen by EU's fiscal authorities.

Mr. Renzi will come under pressure to finance reconstruction efforts for Norce and the nearby towns as he heads into the Dec. 4 referendum on constitutional reform. The vote is evolving into a popularity contest for Mr. Renzi and polls suggest that the outcome is too close to call. He has said he would resign if the referendum goes against him.

"We will rebuild everything, the house the churches and the businesses," Mr. Renzi told reporters on Sunday. "Everything that needs to be done to rebuild these areas will be done."

Norcia suffered little damage in the Aug. 24 quake, party because much of the historic town had been reinforced to make it resistant to tremors. The extensive damage suffered by Norce on Sunday will call into question the quality and design of those efforts.

With a file from Reuters