Another earthquake shook the Italian town of L'Aquila Friday, days before a summit of the G8 is to open there, civil defence authorities said.

The tremor, measuring 4.1 on the Richter scale with an epicentre some eight kilometres (five miles) from the centre of L'Aquila, was moderate compared to the quake that devastated the town on 6 April, killing 299 people.

That disaster prompted Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to switch the G8 venue from Sardinia to L'Aquila as a sign of solidarity with the inhabitants of the town in the Abruzzi region northeast of Rome.

The summit of the world's leading industrial countries is to take place from 8-10 July and will be attended by nearly 40 heads of state and government.

The venue will be a military barracks outside L'Aquila that was spared by the April quake measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale, which left some 70 000 people homeless and was followed by a series of powerful aftershocks.

AFP

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