An earthquake, believed to be the strongest to hit Italy since 1980, struck the center of the country on Sunday, four days after two back-to-back quakes severely damaged buildings and left thousands homeless in the area. The temblor on Sunday also caused fresh damage to the towns destroyed by a quake that killed nearly 300 people on August 24.
The quake, which had a magnitude of 6.5, according to Italy’s national geophysical and volcanology institute, struck at 7:41 am. The epicenter of the earthquake was 10 (6.2 miles deep, between the cities of Perugia and Macerata. It was felt as far away as Bolzano in northern Italy and Puglia in the south, according to Italian news reports.
Most of the towns in the area had already been evacuated after the recent seismic activity, so there were no immediate reports of deaths.
Destruction has been registered in 100 cities in central Italy and about 40,000 people have been evacuated as a result of a strong earthquake, which ripped through parts of the country on Sunday, local media reported.
In the Marche region about 25,000 people were evacuated, in Umbria 10,000-15,000, of which 3000 are from the town of Norcia, near the epicenter of the earthquake, a further 2000 people were evacuated from Lazio and 1000 from Abruzzo, the newspaper Corriere della Sera reported.
Russian and Italian travel agencies said that tourists do not make changes in excursion programs in connection with a number of major earthquakes that have been recorded on the territory of the peninsula, the head of the European department of the BSI Group tour operator, Ekaterina Kameneva, said.
