Woman rescued from quake rubble

Rescuers have pulled a woman alive from the rubble of her apartment building, 12 hours after a killer quake hit northern Italy.

Firefighters said the woman yelled out to rescuers as they were about to reach her in the rubble of her kitchen.

She had gone into the building, damaged by the region's May 20 quake, reportedly to retrieve some clothes, when the 5.8 magnitude shock struck, collapsing the apartment building. The rescue came as the official death toll climbed to 16 with one person missing. The number of injured was raised to 350.

Firefighters said the 65-year-old was saved from being crushed by a piece of furniture which had toppled over in her apartment's kitchen in Cavezzo. She was taken to a hospital for treatment.

The victims included at least three workers at a small machinery company in the small town of San Felice Sul Panaro, who had just returned for their first shift. Two were immigrants and the other an Italian engineer checking the building's stability.

The quake struck north of Bologna in Emilia Romagna, one of Italy's more productive regions, agriculturally and industrially. Originally government officials had put the death toll at 17, and there was no immediately explanation for the lowered toll.

Factories, barns and churches fell, dealing a second blow to a region where thousands remained homeless from the May 20 quake, much 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 the continent's debt crisis.

The area encompassing the cities of Modena, Mantua and Bologna is prized for its super car production, churning out Ferraris, Maseratis and Lamborghinis; its world-famous Parmesan cheese, and less well-known but critical to the economy: machinery companies.

Like the May 20 quake, many of the dead were workers inside huge warehouses, many of them prefabricated, that house factories. Inspectors have been determining which are safe to re-enter, but economic pressure has sped up renewed production - perhaps prematurely. Seven people were killed in the May 20 quake. In both, the dead were largely and disproportionately workers killed by collapsing factories and warehouses.