The injured included a 65-year-old woman who was pulled out alive by rescuers after lying for 12 hours in the rubble of her apartment's kitchen in Cavezzo, another town hard hit by the quake. Firefighters told Sky TG24 TV that a piece of furniture, which had toppled over, saved her from being crushed by the wreckage. She was taken to a hospital for treatment.
The building had been damaged in the first quake, which killed seven people on May 20, and had been vacant since. The woman had just gone back inside it Tuesday morning to retrieve some clothes when the latest temblor knocked down the building, firefighters said.
Factories, barns, and churches fell, dealing a second blow to a region where thousands remained homeless from the May 20 temblor, stronger in intensity at 6.0 magnitude.
The two quakes struck one of the most productive regions in Italy at a particularly crucial moment, as the country faces enormous pressure to grow its economy to stave off Europe's debt crisis. Italy's economic growth has been stagnant for at least a decade, and the national economy is forecast to contract 1.2 percent this year.
The area encompassing the cities of Modena, Mantua, and Bologna is prized for its car production, churning out Ferraris, Maseratis, and Lamborghinis; its world-famous Parmesan cheese; and its machinery companies.
Like the May 20 quake, many of the dead in Tuesday's temblor were workers inside huge warehouses, many of them prefabricated, that house factories. Inspectors have been determining which are safe to reenter, but economic pressure has sped up renewed production - perhaps prematurely.
Premier Mario Monti, tapped to steer the country from financial ruin in November, pledged that the government would quickly provide help to the area "that is so special, so important, and so productive for Italy."
The quake was felt from Piedmont in northwestern Italy to Venice in the northeast and as far north as Austria. Dozens of aftershocks hit the area, some registering more than 5.0 in magnitude.
The temblor terrified many of the thousands of people who have been living in tents or cars since the May 20 quake and created a whole new wave of homeless.
