Italy: 2 Israelis missing following quake

According to the Foreign Ministry, one of the missing nationals is Yuli Minchin, a 24-year-old medical student, and the other is another student from the Galilee.

Yuli's mother, Galina, told Ynet, "He is in L'Aquila, where the earthquake took place. We are waiting for news and have yet to receive any information. I;m under a lot of stress and have taken medications in order to relax."

The quake killed at least 92 people, causing entire blocks of buildings to collapse as residents slept inside and leaving thousands of people homeless, officials said.

Dr. Ofer Mazar, the Israeli consul in Rome, told Ynet on Monday afternoon that he was on his way to L'Aquila. "We are traveling in of a long convoy of cars, and have reached the entrance to the city after asking the security forces to let us in," he said. "I am supposed to meet soon with Israelis at the city's central square."

He added that Israelis were leaving the area and heading to Rome, and that there were those who were already on their way to Israel.

Knesset Member Hanin Zuabi (Balad) appealed to the Foreign Ministry to help some 30 Arab students studying in the quake-stricken area. "We asked them to help locate the students, allow them to leave the disaster area, and received a positive response."

Entire blocks of buildings collapse (Photo: Reuters)

In the city of L'Aquila, near the epicenter of the quake, twisted steel supports, slabs of walls, furniture and wire fences were strewn about the streets and a gray dust carpeted sidewalks, cars and residents alike. At least nine smaller jolts had struck the area since the beginning of April.

Officials said the death toll was likely to rise as rescue crews clawed through the debris of fallen homes, searching for the dozens of people still unaccounted for.

The US Geological Survey said the magnitude of the quake was 6.3, though Italy's National Institute of Geophysics put it at 5.8.

The quake struck about 70 miles (110 kilometers) northeast of Rome at 3:32 am local time (0132 GMT), officials said. The Civil Protection Department said the epicenter was near L'Aquila, in the mountainous Abruzzo region.

Premier Silvio Berlusconi declared a state of emergency, freeing up federal funds to deal with the disaster. He scrapped a visit to Russia and planned to go to L'Aquila to deal with the crisis.

'Worst tragedy since start of millennium'

Parts of L'Aquila's main hospital were evacuated because they were at risk of collapse, forcing the wounded to be treated in the open air or taken elsewhere.

"It's the worst tragedy since the start of the millennium," said Guido Bertolaso, the head of Italy's Civil Protection Department.

Rachel Feinmesser, spokeswoman of the Israeli Embassy in Rome, said that the Foreign Ministry had contacted most of the Israelis staying in the area, apart from a small number of people, including students.

"We are trying to locate them through the local authorities. I hope we will be able to confirm that there are no Israelis among the casualties in the next few hours," she said.

Udi Itach, a 28-year-old veterinary student studying in the Teramo province, located some 30 kilometers from the quake's epicenter, told Ynet, "I woke up and saw everything trembling around me. Pictures fell down, books fell off the shelves. It was terrifying."

Dotan Barda of the Campus Studies company, which refers Israeli students to academic institutes abroad, told Ynet that "at the moment we are trying to locate three missing students in L'Aquila, together with the institutions we have ties with in the country. We are also organizing a delegation of Israeli students studying in Italy to help in the search."

'He fled just before building collapsed'

The parents of Majd Mansour, who is currently in his second year of medical school in Italy, are waiting to hear that their son is on his way home.

Mansour has been able to contact his family, which lives in the northern Druze village of Majdal Krum, and tell them he was able to flee the building he lives in moment before it collapsed.

"Thank God he survived, but we won’t be able to completely calm down until he is home with us," Majd's father, Zuhir, told Ynet.

The family awoke to the news of the L'Aquila earthquake, "and from the moment I heard and until I was able to reach him it took nearly an hour. Those were terrible moment," the father recounted.

"He said he was fine and that he woke up at 3 am with the house shaking around him and rocks falling on his head. He got up, woke up his roommate and they fled just before the building collapsed. I know that now he is looking for his best friend there, near the student dorms."

The communication systems in the L'Aquila area were down on noontime, and the family could no longer contact their son. The family is in constant contact with the Foreign Ministry, in an attempt to have Mansour rescued from the area as soon as possible, as "we know one quake can be followed by another."

Sharon Roffe-Ofir contributed to this report