ROME — The 6.5-magnitude earthquake that hit central Italy Sunday left more than 25,000 people homeless in the region of Marche, regional President Luca Ceriscioli said. More people were feared to be without shelter in neighboring Umbria.
ROME — The 6.5-magnitude earthquake that hit central Italy Sunday left more than 25,000 people homeless in the region of Marche, regional President Luca Ceriscioli said. More people were feared to be without shelter in neighboring Umbria.
Italy’s civil defense agency said no deaths had been reported, but at least 20 people were injured and several buildings collapsed in the quake — the most powerful to hit Italy since 1980.
Many people without shelter are to be brought to the coast, prompting the mayor of the Adriatic city of Civitanova, Tommasso Corvatta, to speak of an “epochal migration.”
Sunday’s earthquake struck at 7:40 a.m. local time in the Sibillini park, a rugged mountain area straddling the Marche and Umbria regions about 75 miles northeast of Rome, according to the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology (INGV).
Though human lives appeared to have been spared, the destruction of historic ruins and monuments was reported in the two regions.
In the medieval town of Norcia, the ANSA news agency reported, the 14th century San Benedetto Basilica and the Cathedral of Santa Maria Argentea collapsed, and the Culture Ministry’s General Secretary Antonia Pasqua Recchia spoke of thousands of reports of damage.
“Today, fortunately enough, we weep for our culture heritage and not the dead,” Recchia said.