Italian Prime Minister has promise to the residents of Italy following 6.6 magnitude quake.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi promised to rebuild the country after the magnitude 6.6 quake that hit the country on Sunday.
The said tremor which struck northeast of Rome at 7:40 a.m. (2:40 a.m. ET) in considered the most powerful earthquake to strike the country in 36 years.
The U.S. Geological Survey initially measured the quake at 7.1 but revised it to 6.6. The European-Mediterranean Seismological Center put the magnitude at 6.6 or 6.5, with an epicenter about 100 miles northeast of Rome.
The civil protection agency of Italy said the epicenter was between Macerata and Perugia, close to the towns of Norcia and Preci, which were most affected by Wednesday’s quakes.
It toppled ancient buildings and left thousands of people seeking assistance and preparing for aftershocks. Some injuries were reported, but no deaths had been linked.
At a news conference Sunday, Prime Minister Renzie said, “we will rebuild everything — the houses, the churches, the shops.”
“We are dealing [with] marvelous territories, territories of beauty,” he added.
The tremor rocked the country as it recovers from a pair of quakes Wednesday and from August’s temblor that left almost 300 dead. Seismologists in Italy and Britain told the Associated Press that more could be on the way.
“We cannot exclude the possibility of larger magnitude aftershocks,” Margarita Segou of the British Geological Survey said. She cited a series of quakes in Japan earlier this year.
Many residents in affected areas still were sleeping in cars or had been evacuated to shelters or hotels in other areas following last week’s jolts.
Nearly 8,000 people from the region had still sought help from the civilian protection agency by Sunday night where 3,000 more were expected to ask for assistance overnight.
In the city of Rome, cracks appeared and bits of the ceiling fell in the Basilica San Paolo, a historic church in the region.
“It is since 1980 that we have had to deal with an earthquake of this magnitude,” said Fabrizio Curcio, head of the civil protection agency.
The mayor of Ussita said 90 percent of houses in the town had been destroyed due to the quake.