Italy Seeks Housing for Quake Victims

ROME (AP) -- Italian authorities are debating how to provide warmer, sturdier housing for people rendered homeless by last week's earthquake and who now live in tents in the chilly Apennine Mountains.

Nearly 2,700 people needing shelter following the Aug. 24 temblor are staying in 58 tent camps or other shelters arranged by the Civil Protection agency. Others stay in a gym in the hardest-hit town, Amatrice, while those most fearful of looting often sleep in cars near their damaged homes.

Italy's lobbying group for farmers, Coldiretti, said Monday its members didn't want to make barns available for earthquake victims because their animals need them.

Italian architect Renzo Piano met Premier Matteo Renzi on Sunday and proposed building temporary wooden homes near devastated towns, so that traumatized people could stay near their roots.

(KA)