Italy's fatal quake to aggravate economic crisis

MILAN - The 5.8-magnitude earthquake which hit central-northern Italy on Tuesday would aggravate the current economic crisis, the country's leading industrial association Confindustria said in a report on Wednesday.

A woman looks at a damaged building in Cavezzo near Modena May 30, 2012. An earthquake killed 16 people and injured about 350 in northern Italy on Tuesday, spreading fear among thousands of residents living in tents after a similarly strong tremor in the same region flattened their homes nine days ago. [Photo/Agencies]

"It will have prolonged effects on production in some of the most important Italian industrial districts and on an area strongly geared to manufacturing. This can only aggravate an already very difficult scenario," the report said.

"Production may remain stopped for three to four months, and I learned this may cause a further one-percent drop of gross domestic product," Confindustria head Giorgio Squinzi was quoted as saying by local media.

On Wednesday morning, the official death toll in the earthquake rose to 17 after a missing worker was found dead under his factory rubble in the town of Medolla, in the central-northern Emilia Romagna region that was shaken by the quake.

This is the second powerful tremor to hit Italy in just 10 days after another 5.9-magnitude quake killed at least seven people on May 20.

Local industrial associations expected the economic damage to be hundred millions of euros as thousands of companies were forced to stop production.

In a meeting on Wednesday, the technocratic government led by Prime Minister Mario Monti adopted a series of special measures including fuel tax hikes to tackle the emergency.

Other associations said the collapse of tens of industrial sheds, which killed 14 out of 17 victims, was "unacceptable."

The area was not warned of strong seismic risk until 2005, said the head of the centrist CISL labor union Raffaele Bonanni.

"The tragedy was avoidable. Much more caution should have been used," he told Rai state television.

On Wednesday, president of Italy's Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) Stefano Gresta told a press conference in Rome that the "sequence" was not finished and other powerful tremors may hit the same area in the following months.

Hundreds of aftershocks have been registered by the institute in the past days, with over 40 reported last night.

Cultural and artistic loss was huge as well, as many centuries-old buildings and churches in various towns of the epicenter area collapsed or suffered serious damage.

A team of the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) will reportedly travel to the quake-hit region to estimate the loss.

The country will hold a day of mourning for the victims on June 2, during the Feast of the Italian Republic.

"Celebrations will be still held, but in a sober way, to show the state is close to the earthquake victims," President Giorgio Napolitano said in response to groups of citizens asking him to call off the expensive traditional June 2 parade and donate the money to the quake-hit region.