"I felt the house dancing around. It was chaos. We ran in all directions," said Claudio Bignami, 68, a retired electrician in the town of San Carlo.

"The furniture all fell over. There was broken glass everywhere," said Bignami, as he stared out of his store at a collapsing restaurant in front.

"We're all trying to help each other out now," he said.

Small aftershocks continued to sow panic in the sparsely populated farmlands, industrial parks and small towns around the historic city of Ferrara even after the main 6.0-magnitude shock in the early hours of the morning that left at least six dead.

Cracks were visible in the roads and chimneys and roof tiles littered the streets. At a nearby ceramic factory where two employees died, the crashing sounds of falling crates of tiles could still be heard long after the quake.

Alda Bregoli, 73, was still in her nightshirt with a woollen jumper thrown on top standing under an umbrella in the rain.

"I had to run out as quickly as possible. I didn't have time to put anything on. The firemen told me I can't go back in. I'm scared," she said.

Out of habit, many residents crowded around shuttered bars where they would usually go on a Sunday and looked for emergency workers, asking them to inspect the damage in their homes and worried about where they could stay the night.

Local business owners began calculating the extent of the damage.

One angry man in a baseball cap living in an isolated home in the countryside, still under shock, shouted: "Why are there no emergency workers here helping me? The roof of my house has fallen in! Why are they ignoring me?"

The earthquake left many of the region's modern two-storey homes intact but older buildings, ancient churches and belltowers which dot the flatlands were badly hit -- some collapsed, others had gaping cracks.

The centre of Ferrara is classified as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

A local chapel in San Carlo, the 16th-century Ghisilieri Oratorium, which had just been re-opened after an eight-year restoration, lay in ruins.

"We'll never be able to rebuild it," sighed Claudio Fabbri, 37, an architect from Modena who has been working on the project and who rushed to the scene in the early hours after a local resident told him what had happened.

Statues of angels in the chapel's apse stared into the open sky after the roof and most of the walls caved in. Fabbri said his only hope was to save a precious painting above the altar now exposed to the elements.

"We even had an Internet campaign to raise funds to restore the terracotta flooring. A lot of local residents contributed," said Fabbri, shaking his head.

"It was a very rich church. During the restoration we uncovered a 16th-century fresco in the ceiling. It even has the relics of a pope."

"The earthquake was very strong and heavily damaged the structures of many warehouses as well as thousands of tonnes" of the two cheeses, said Stefano Berni, head of a consortium that protects the Grana Padano designation.

"It's a very heavy loss, but there have been no casualties, which is a great relief at this worrying time," he told the ANSA news agency.

An initial estimate of 250 million euros ($320 million) is "very conservative," Berni said, adding that he hoped no further tremors would "further aggravate the state of the already highly damaged and fragile structures."

A wheel of the cheese can weigh up to 40 kilogrammes (90 pounds).

Quake survivors await beds in Italian gym
Sant'Agnostino, Italy (AFP) May 20, 2012 - Survivors of a deadly quake in northeast Italy sought shelter in a gymnasium Sunday, but many were losing patience as authorities appeared ill-equipped to cope with the emergency.

"The roof of my house has collapsed and I was told to come here, but I don't see where we can sleep," complained one man, who was among about 100 others seeking refuge in the gym, bemoaning the absence of beds and trying to keep warm under blankets.

Authorities evacuated about 3,000 people from the Emilia Romagna region, where a magnitude 6.0 quake struck early Sunday, killing at least six.

Most were evacuated from the Modena area, while 500 were asked to leave their homes in the area around Ferrara.

A local representative from the civil protection service, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he was frustrated with the response to the disaster.

"We have not been told what to do yet. It's just confusion here," he said, clearly irritated. "We are waiting and keeping count of the people who are arriving."

He added that many houses were still spewing gas from leaks.

Survivors in the gym were relieved to be away from the quake's epicentre.

Speaking on a deserted basketball court, 38-year-old Angelo huddled with his wife and one-year-old.

"I was told that I can go home, but I am afraid. I have a baby and I don't want to have to re-live what happened overnight," he said.

"We will sleep here even if they don't bring us beds or anything. At least it's safe."

Angelo said his house shook so hard it was impossible to flee from it.

"When we were got on the street, it was like we were at sea, the ground was shaking," he said.

Several children were among the survivors, as well as two wheelchair-bound elderly women, a woman with a small dog and a chain-smoking man.

"I still have goosebumps," the man said. "When I felt the quake, I went to get my baby from the cradle but I couldn't find him -- with the shock, I did not understand that my wife had already taken him outside," the man said.

"I was screaming, I was desperate," he said, adding that he would sleep outside in case an aftershock jolted the gynasium.

The fatal quake was registered at 0204 GMT. Authorities said its epicentre was the commune of Finale Emilia, 36 kilometres (22 miles) north of Bologna, at a depth of only 5.1 kilometres (3.2 miles).

While many in the gym were upset at the lack of bedding, a small bar was offering sandwiches and crackers.

"At least they have given me something to eat here," one survivor said.