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More than 130 die in central Italian quake
L'AQUILA, Italy (Reuters) - A powerful earthquake struck central Italy early on Monday, killing more than 130 people, making up to 50,000 homeless and flattening entire medieval towns while residents slept.
As rescue workers combed through the rubble for survivors and rushed to set up tents for the homeless, officials warned the death toll could rise further and declined to estimate the number of missing.
Most of the dead were in L'Aquila, a 13th-century mountain city about 100 km (60 miles) east of Rome, and villages and towns in the Abruzzo region. The quake struck around 3.30 a.m. (2:30 a.m. British time) and aftershocks rattled the area through the day.
"Please help us, we've lost everything, we are desperate," said a sobbing man whose mother and 21-year old son were killed.
"I called them, I called them until I had no voice left. I was digging in the rubble with my own bare hands. They found them this afternoon, buried in debris, hugging each other," he told state television.
Lower house speaker Gianfranco Fini said some towns in the area had been "virtually destroyed in their entirety."
Abruzzo's regional government said more than 130 people were confirmed dead, some 20 hours after the quake struck with a magnitude of between 5.8 and 6.3. ANSA news agency quoted hospital sources as saying more than 150 people had died.
Emergency services said 60 people had been plucked alive form the wreckage, including six students trapped inside a collapsed dormitory, but the website of Corriere della Sera said 250 people were still missing.
"I woke up hearing what sounded like a bomb," said L'Aquila resident Angela Palumbo, 87.
"We managed to escape with things falling all around us. Everything was shaking, furniture falling. I don't remember ever seeing anything like this in my life."
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi cancelled a trip to Moscow and declared a national emergency, freeing up funds for aid and rebuilding. But he also appeared on the defensive about reports that officials shrugged off a warning about the quake weeks ago.
Flying in to the disaster zone, Berlusconi told reporters that now was the time to concentrate on relief efforts and "we can discuss afterwards about the predictability of earthquakes."
The Civil Protection department said up to 50,000 people may have been made homeless in some 26 cities and towns. More than 1,500 people were injured and thousands of houses, ancient churches and buildings collapsed or were damaged.
Rubble was strewn throughout L'Aquila, a city of 68,000, and nearby towns, blocking roads and hampering rescue teams. Old women wailed and residents armed with only their bare hands helped firefighters and rescue workers in the rubble.
In the small town of Onna, which was almost entirely razed to the ground, 24 people were killed. A Reuters witness saw a mother and her infant daughter carried away in the same coffin.
Older houses and buildings made of stone, particularly in outlying villages that had not seen much restoration, collapsed.
APPEALS FOR HELP
Hospitals appealed for help from doctors and nurses throughout Italy. The smell of gas filled parts of the mountain towns and villages, coming from mains ruptured by the quake.
Thousands of tents in parks and stadiums were put up to shelter the homeless and hotels on the Adriatic coast were requisitioned.
"We're hoping they give us a tent or something to sleep under tonight," said 70-year-old Isenia Santilli, taking refuge at a sports field outside L'Aquila's city centre where the Red Cross was feeding quake victims.
Residents of Rome, which is rarely hit by seismic activity, were woken by the quake, which rattled furniture and swayed lights in most of central Italy.
"When the quake hit, I rushed out to my father's house and opened the main door and everything had collapsed. My father is surely dead. I called for help but no one was around," said Camillo Berardi in L'Aquila.
In another part of the city, residents tried to hush the wailing of grief to try to pinpoint the screams of a survivor.
At least four Romanesque and Renaissance churches and a 16th-century castle were damaged. Part of the nave of the Basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio, one of the area's best-known churches, collapsed.
To the north, the belltower of the lavish Renaissance Basilica of San Bernardino also crumbled. Bridges and highways in the mountainous area were closed as a precaution.
Weeks before the disaster, an Italian scientist had predicted a major quake around L'Aquila, based on concentrations of radon gas found around seismically active areas.
Seismologist Gioacchino Giuliani, who lives in L'Aquila, was reported to police for "spreading alarm" and was forced to remove his findings from the Internet.
Civil Protection assured locals at the end of March that tremors being felt were "absolutely normal" for a seismic area.
Earthquakes can be particularly dangerous in parts of Italy because so many buildings are centuries old. About 2,700 people died in an earthquake in the south in 1980.
(Writing by Philip Pullella and Phil Stewart; additional reporting by Reuters Rome bureau; editing by Tim Pearce)