Roundup: Deadly earthquake outside Rome, Italy; 1,700 planes to be retired

Italy | A 6.3 earthquake shook the country town of L’Aquila about 70 miles northeast of Rome early this morning. The death toll is rising as more bodies are uncovered in the rubble. Use Twitter hashtags #earthquake and #italy to get a roundup of news links as well as citizen journalism reports. I found this picture of a massive hole in the ground from @greezer. Here is a photogallery of damage from the earthquake from the Italian news site ilCentro.

[Update: Los Angeles Times staff writer Susan Spano felt the earthquake in Rome. She reports that she is fine and has this information to add:

It's now over 100 fatalities and TV news is saying 40,000 to 50,000 homeless. The historic center of the town of L'Aquila was much damaged.

But it sounds like the epicenter was a village called Tornimparte a few miles west of L'Aquila.

Comparisons are being made to the September 1997 5.5 and 5.7 quakes near Assisi.]

Airline news | United plans to retire all 94 of its Boeing 737s by the end of this year. That’s just a small portion of the 1,700 planes that have been counted in the number of planes being taken out of service. So, where do they go after they’re no longer in use? Some will be sold, others scrapped, and many are sent out to the desert. Read: “Shrinking Airlines Park More Planes in the Desert.

– Jen Leo, Los Angeles Times Travel & Deal blogger

[Photo: Ansa Abruzzo / EPA]

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This entry was posted on Monday, April 6, 2009 at 6:11 am by Jen Leo and is filed under Europe, Good Morning, Italy, News, Tips & Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.