Another powerful quake rattles Italy, but no deaths immediately reported

A powerful earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.6 has rocked the same area of central and southern Italy hit by quake in August and a pair of aftershocks last week, sending already quake-damaged buildings crumbling after a week of temblors that have left thousands homeless.

• Quakes cause fear, injuries, widespread damage in central Italy
• 'Apocalyptic' aftershocks of back-to-back earthquakes level buildings in Italy

The head of Italy's civil protection agency, Fabrizio Curcio, said there were no immediate reports of deaths, but said some people had suffered injuries as numerous buildings that had resisted the previous temblors collapsed. He did not provide details on the injured.

Curcio said the agency is using helicopters to tend to the injured and to assess damage.

He said 1,300 people displaced on Wednesday by a pair of powerful aftershocks to an August quake that killed nearly 300 had been evacuated to the coast in recent days and that the operation would continue.

Residents already rattled by a constant trembling of the earth rushed into piazzas and streets after being roused from bed by Sunday's 7:40 a.m. quake. Many people still had been sleeping in cars or evacuated to shelters or hotels in other areas after a pair of strong jolts last Wednesday.

Almost 8,000 people have sought assistance from Italy's Civil Protection agency and are being housed in hotels and shelters following Sunday's quake and the one last week.

The agency said early Monday that it was expecting to assist about 3,000 more residents overnight.

The agency's figures do not include the many who are sleeping in their own tents, cars and campers, or who have found their own lodging elsewhere.

Outdoor mass advised

A Catholic Church leader in Umbria, one of the two regions where Sunday's quake caused buildings to collapse, is advising parish priests to avoid holding Mass inside churches.

Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti told priests to hold Mass outdoors Sunday,as well as on All Saint's Day on Tuesday, a holiday on which Catholic's remember the dead.

The news agency ANSA said Bassetti, head of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Umbria, made the decision after consulting with the head of the region.

The earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.6 has damaged historic churches in the town of Norcia, including the 14th century St. Benedict cathedral in one of the city's main piazza.

Television images showed nuns rushing out of their church and into the main piazza in Norcia as the clock tower appeared about to crumble. One had to be carried by firefighters, while another was supported as she walked.

The mayor of quake-hit Ussita said a huge cloud of smoke erupted from the crumbled buildings.

'I saw hell'

"It's a disaster, a disaster!" Mayor Marco Rinaldi told the ANSA news agency. "I was sleeping in the car and I saw hell."

Another hard-hit city, Castelsantangelo sul Nera, also suffered new damage. In Arquata del Tronto, which had been devastated by the Aug. 24 earthquake that killed nearly 300 people, Arquata Mayor Aleandro Petrucci said, "There are no towns left."

"Everything came down," he said.

The quake was felt throughout the Italian peninsula, with reports as far north as Bolzano and as far south as Bari. Residents rushed into the streets in Rome, where ancient palazzi shook, swayed and lurched for a prolonged spell.

Austria's governmental earthquake monitoring organization said the quake was felt to varying degrees in the east and south of the country and all the way to the city of Salzburg. It says that at its strongest, residents in upper floors noticed a swaying sensation and a slow swinging of hanging objects.

The head of the civil protection authority in Italy's March region, Cesare Spuri, said there have been reports of buildings collapsing in many cities.

"We are trying to understand if people are under the rubble," Spuri said.

In Norcia, nuns knelt in prayer and a firefighter appealed to a priest to help maintain calm among dozens of residents gathered there, including some in wheelchairs.

The church, which had withstood the August earthquake in August and last week's aftershocks, still was standing, but television pictures showed piles of stone had accumulated at the bottom of one wall. One stone was thrown meters into the centre of the piazza, illustrating the quake's force.

"We have to keep people calm. Prayer can help. I don't want people to go searching for family members," the firefighter appealed as cameras from SKY TG24 filmed.

The European-Mediterranean Seismological Center put the magnitude at 6.6 or 6.5 with an epicentre 132 kilometres northeast of Rome and 67 kilometres east of Perugia, near the epicentre of last week's temblors. The U.S. Geological Survey put the magnitude at 6.6.

The German Research Centre for Geosciences put the magnitude at 6.5 and said it had a depth of 10 kilometres, a relatively shallow quake near the surface but in the norm for the quake-prone Apennine Mountain region.