Most buildings unsafe in Italian quake-hit areas

The Italian civil protection agency on Sunday said nearly two-thirds of the buildings inspected in quake-hit areas of central Italy have been declared either permanently or temporarily unsafe. Checks have been carried out so far on 26,911 buildings including homes, offices and schools and of that number only 9,454 were declared accessible. The agency pointed out in a statement that checks by engineers were only carried out in the worst affected areas around the cities of Bologna, Mantova and Modena and were therefore not representative of the region as a whole. It also said a total of 10,891 people made homeless by the earthquakes were still in temporary accommodation including tent camps, schools and barracks. Two earthquakes in May measuring 6.0 and 5.8 on the Richter scale killed 25 people and devastated the wealthy farming and industrial Emilia Romagna region.