Photo Gallery A Region in Rubble
A couple from the Italian city L'Aquila stand in the rain in front of the rubble of their former home. Many of the buildings destroyed in Monday's earthquake were relatively new.
A team of rescuers continue to search for surivivors in the rubble of buildings destroyed in Onna, Italy. Monday morning's earthquake measured 6.3 on the Richter scale and the destruction in Italy's Abruzzo region has been devastating.
At least 179 people have been claimed officially dead in the earthquake, and 1,500 have been injured. At least 34 people are also reported to be missing.
Rescue workers are using scent dogs to search for people who may still be alive beneath the rubble.
Tent camps have been set up for survivors of the natural disaster. Officials said some 10,000 to 15,000 buildings were either damaged or destroyed. At least 50,000 people were left homeless.
Critics are blaming shoddy construction practices for the biblical scale of destruction. This image shows a destroyed building in the city of L'Aquila. "We get all worked up after every earthquake," Enzo Boschi of the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology said, according to the Associated Press, "but it's not in our culture to construct buildings the right way in the quake zone."
Rescue workers pull an injured woman from her house. Across the region hit by the earthquake, citizens helped rescue workers search for survivors, often clearing rubble with their bare hands.
In the city of L'Aquila, the largest to be hit by the quake, the local hospital was badly damanged. Here, hospital beds have been set up in a courtyard to treat the wounded. The Italian military has also dispatched mobile operating facilities to the region.
A helicopter view shows the scope of damage in the village of Onna in the province of L'Aquila. Onna was nearly leveled, with an estimated 38 of 300 residents feared dead, according to wire reports. Rescuers on Tuesday sought to reach more isolated hamlets.
An injured man walks past his destroyed home in Onna.
The belltower of the baroque Concezione church in Paganica near L'Aquila was also badly damaged, underscoring the scope of the cultural loss in this historic region.
Rescuers carry a stretcher in Onna. The main hospital in the region was badly damaged, and many victims had to be evacuated by helicopter for treatment elsewhere.
Here, shaken residents sit on a sidewalk on Monday in L'Aquila, the regional capital of Abruzzo.
The sight of people pulling their belongings behind them in suitcases was a common one.
A couple embrace near the ruins of their house in the village of Onna.
An Italian police officer walks through the rubble after the earthquake in Onna.
A student dormitory in L'Aquila was completely destroyed. Here firefighters can be seen trying to dig out students who were still missing.
Rescue worker search for trapped people in another damaged building in L'Aquila.
An aerial view of collapsed buildings in L'Aquila.
This church is one of countless pieces of the Abruzzo region's cultural heritage that has been lost.
Rescue workers still haven't given up the hope of finding additional survivors. They continued searching throughout the night on Monday and Tuesday morning.
But their work has been complicated by rain and aftershocks.
