Rescuers search victims in the rubble of the old city of the Abruzzo capita...





Update: 100,000 Left Homeless in Central Italy in 6.3-Magnitude Quake’s Wake

The United States said Monday it would donate 50,000 dollars in emergency aid to Italy after a powerful earthquake killed at least 100 people.

"We send our heartfelt condolences to the families of those killed in the earthquake. Our embassy in Rome will provide 50,000 (dollars) in emergency relief funding," State Department spokesman Robert Wood told reporters.

Italian authorities told the United States they did not need rescue teams, Wood said.

President Barack Obama earlier offered his condolences on a visit to Turkey and voiced hope that the United States could send rescuers.

The earthquake killed at least 100 people and injured 1,500 more as it reduced medieval buildings to rubble in the central town of L'Aquila.

Wood said there were no reports of US citizens among the dead or injured but that the US embassy in Rome was reaching out to Americans living in the region.

State Department officials anguished over whether to tell Italy that its shipments of medicine, gauze and other medical supplies spoiled in the elements for weeks after Katrina's landfall on Aug. 29, 2005, and were destroyed. "Tell them we blew it," one disgusted official wrote. But she hedged: "The flip side is just to dispose of it and not come clean. I could be persuaded."