Rescue Efforts Underway in Italy After Major Earthquake

GWEN IFILL:

Our lead story. A powerful earthquake in the mountains of central Italy killed more than 150 people today, flattening entire towns. The 6.3 magnitude quake was centered near L'Aquila, northeast of Rome.

Italian officials said as many as 100,000 people in the region may have been left homeless.

We have a report from Robert Moore of Independent Television News.

ROBERT MOORE:

In a tragedy that has in every sense shaken this ancient town to its core, these are the rare moments to treasure. This man was pulled from the rubble by rescuers. His relief, his reaction to the knowledge he had cheated death was overwhelming.

For the exhausted crews who had worked for three hours here, it was a glimmer of hope, that there might be more stories that could unfold.

And a few hours later, we watched similar scenes of a four-story apartment block that had collapsed. Local people and firefighters at times using their bare hands. So great was the need for care as masonry was removed. At least three people were trapped but miraculously alive under the shattered concrete.

One woman, Francesca, was found with just a broken shoulder. She was taken to an ambulance amid chaotic scenes. A photo of Francesca, recovered from the ruins, shows one of the luckiest people alive.

It's 12 hours since the earthquake struck and hours since Francesca was rescued from this very building. And still there's hope for more survivors, but as always it is a battle against the odds and against the clock.

So we waited for the rescue of another woman called Claudia, but suddenly the faces around us told the story. Relatives crying. Rescue workers using a bed sheet to cover the scene. This young 22-year-old another victim of an earthquake that had shattered this town in the darkest hour of the night.

Dozens of people have been saved thanks to an epic rescue effort that began within minutes.

L'Aquila has faced tremors and earthquakes over the centuries. But how can a family truly prepare for a moment like this?

Fifteen thousand buildings are damaged, including the city's hospitals. It forced paramedics and hospital staff to work outside, to improvise emergency care as best they could.

And all around them are signs of the forces at work when an earthquake strikes, not just the images of destruction best viewed from the air, but look at this gaping hole in the ground, swallowing one car, leaving another on the edge.

Local residents uniformly speak of a terrible noise, of a 30-second tremor, and then the race for their lives out of buildings and on to the streets.

The death toll is proving very difficult to calculate, for beyond this historic city are outlying villages where the destruction is still being assessed. The redeeming feature we witnessed here is the scale of the rescue effort and the determination of the emergency teams to keep looking for survivors.