Another earthquake shook the Italian town of L'Aquila Friday, not far from the venue of the G8 summit taking place there next week, authorities said.
Civil defence officials said the tremor measured 4.1 on the Richter scale with an epicentre some eight kilometres (five miles) from the centre of L'Aquila, which was devastated by a massive quake in April that killed 299 people.
Media reports said Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi had shown evident concern at Friday's cabinet meeting, while officials said that the G8 venue, in a military barracks, and local hotels were not threatened.
The April 6 disaster, which also left some 70,000 people homeless, prompted Berlusconi to switch the G8 venue from Sardinia to L'Aquila as a sign of solidarity with the inhabitants of the town in the Abruzzi region northeast of Rome.
The summit of the world's leading industrial countries is to take place from July 8-10 and will be attended by nearly 40 heads of state and government.
The Corriere della Sera newspaper said the reinforced concrete barracks had been shaken by Friday's tremor, whose epicentre was just a kilometre away, and the alarms of cars parked in the area were triggered.
Friday's tremor caused no casualties and no apparent damage, but caused a wave of panic among residents.
"It shifted the cupboards in our offices, and was so strong we all rushed outside without waiting for instructions,'' Domenico Colantori, who works for Telecom Italia in a five-story steel and glass building, told AFP.
"It's terrible, we have to go back to work with our hearts full of fear _ every time a door slams I want to jump out of the window, I'm so frightened.''
Colantori, one of those left homeless and living in a tent since the April quake, said there had been some 30 small shocks overnight.
The April quake, measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale, was followed by a series of aftershocks, some as powerful as 5.0.
However authorities said that checks had shown the G8 venue could stand up to any of the earthquakes that have ever occurred in the region.
"For the situation to be dangerous, there would have to be an earthquake that has never happened at L'Aquila in living memory, the civil protection agency's seismic risks department chief Mauro Dolce.
"We have taken the responsibility of declaring the barracks habitable as well as the hotels where the journalists will stay,'' he said.
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- Writer: AFP
