No immediate reports of deaths from Italy quake

ROME  — The Latest on the powerful earthquake that has rocked already stricken central and southern Italy (all times local):

10:10 a.m.

The head of Italy's civil protection agency says there are no immediate reports of deaths after an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.6 struck regions already damaged by previous quakes.

Fabrizio Curcio said some people suffered injuries as numerous buildings that had resisted previous temblors in August and last week collapsed. He did not provide details on the nature or extent of the injuries.

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

He says 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.

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9:25 a.m.

The ancient city of Norcia, famed for its Benedictine monastery and its cured meats, is one of the locations hardest-hit by the latest earthquake to rock Italy.

Eyewitnesses said the St. Benedict cathedral, the 14th century cathedral in one of the city's main piazza, crumbled in the Sunday morning quake and only its facade remains standing. Priests prayed in the piazza amid the rubble.

Norcia city assessor Giuseppina Perla tells the ANSA news agency, "It's as if the whole city fell down."

The U.S. Geological Service says the earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.6 was centered 6 kilometers (3 miles) north of Norcia.

The city's ancient walls suffered damage, as did another famous Norcia church, St. Mary Argentea, known for its 15th century frescoes.

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9:15 a.m.

Emergency workers are racing to determine if any people have been killed or injured in the latest earthquake to rock central and southern Italy.

The Sunday morning quake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.6 was centered in a mountainous area straddling the central Italy regions of Umbria and Marche.

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

A pair of powerful quakes on Wednesday, technically aftershocks from an August earthquake that killed nearly 300 people, may have helped save lives on Sunday.

Many people still were sleeping in cars or had been evacuated to shelters or hotels in other areas following those strong jolts, leaving the most quake-prone historic centers largely empty of residents.

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8:00 a.m.

A powerful earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.6 has rocked central and southern Italy after a week of temblors that have left thousands homeless.

The European-Mediterranean Seismological Center put the magnitude at 6.6 or 6.5 with an epicenter 132 kilometers northeast of Rome and 67 kilometers east of Perugia, near the epicenter of last week's temblors. It struck at 7:40 a.m.