Along the road linking the coastal city of Pescara to L'Aquila we passed by beautiful towns nestled against a backdrop of snow capped mountains. The road twisted and turned past old ruins and idyllic farms - it was truly stunning.

But as we moved deeper into the Abruzzo quake zone we began to pass ruined churches and buildings. They looked as though they could have fallen centuries ago, but only 36 hours earlier they had been standing tall.

We were headed to the village of Onna, which had sustained massive destruction during the 6.3 magnitude earthquake. Onna is a rural village situated about 8 miles outside of the city of L'Aquila. Its old stone homes were no match for the massive power of the quake that struck in the early hours while the villagers slept.

Of a population of around 310 residents, as many as 38 were killed that night. The surviving families are now living in a camp erected on the outskirts of the village. The Italian government mobilised quickly, and rescue workers and Italian medical teams poured into the region.

Fortunately the road infrastructure remained fairly intact and access from Rome and the East coast was good. An Italian team from Operation Blessing was on the ground quickly, and worked with the government coordination team to identify essential needs as the camp in Onna was being erected.

The first full night had been very difficult for survivors across the region. At a high elevation the nights are very cold year round and many had been forced to sleep in cars, some slept under plastic sheeting. With frequent aftershocks no one was prepared to sleep indoors.

I joined our Italian team and arrived in Onna to a media frenzy. There were foreign news crews everywhere - a disaster of this scale on European soil is rare and the world was following the story with keen interest.

While the military erected large tents and scrambled to source portable latrines, we were asked to provide bottled water, food, sleeping bags, cot beds, pillows, cutlery and other essential items to the camp in Onna.

Fortunately the town of Pescara only lies one and a half hours away and was well stocked with supplies. We were able to source the materials with, in my experience, unprecedented ease in a disaster situation.

On a delivery to Onna, we were ushered into the camp area which the officials were trying to shield from the media as much as possible. Some villagers were sitting in groups at the opening of the tents, others were lying on cots, and quite a few families were eating in a marquee erected as a dining area.

After offloading the truck we walked through the camp with the coordinator assessing further needs. We stopped to talk to a group of girls. One of them, only eight years old, had lost her two younger sisters and was visibly upset. The camp coordinator asked us to supply a generator-powered floodlight system to help illuminate the camp at night. He told us how many of the survivors, especially children, were petrified of the dark because of its association with the night-time quake.

In the dining hall, I took a few photographs of a woman eating some of the food we had supplied. I was tapped on the shoulder by one of the camp coordinators. "She lost three family members," he whispered on my ear.

I put down my camera and turned to offer my apologies, but she was staring into her plate with glazed eyes. The survivors are still in a state of utter shock. In an instant they had lost family members, their homes and all of their possessions. They were left out in the cold and they were hungry.

We were permitted to walk through the ruined village. Cars lay crushed under collapsed walls in the narrow streets, and the smell of death hung heavy in the air. Rescue teams continued to search for survivors in one area and would dig frantically, then shout for silence as they listened for any sign of life from the rubble.

RELUCTANT TO LEAVE

Despite their shock and grief, the villagers of Onna do not want to leave. Many residents of L'Aquila were ushered to Pescara to stay in hotels but it seems villagers in the surrounding communities would rather stay put.

"Many of them kept their money in their homes, maybe under the mattress," explained one aid worker who had been called in from Milan. "They don't want anyone to steal it."

Another coordinator suggested it was the village itself that kept them there: "They are proud of their heritage and are afraid that if they leave they will never come back."

A major news network interviewed me about the situation in the camps. During the interview I was asked to compare this disaster to other earthquakes I have responded to. Having spent the majority of the last six months living in China, I chose to talk about the Sichuan earthquake.

The May 12 earthquake had been followed by a long series of aftershocks, some very strong. The Chinese government put a hold any reconstruction for at least three months while teams carried out geophysical surveys. In the midst of an "earthquake storm", it will be a matter of months before reconstruction can begin here in Onna - that is if reconstruction is allowed at all.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has suggested the government will build a new city for quake victims. This idea did not seem to go down well in the camp at Onna where the villagers want to rebuild their old homes. "Our economy is terrible - how will they help us?" shouted an old man lying on a cot bed.

The Sichuan quake struck in the afternoon, and that is thought to have spared many lives. But this quake struck while the residents slept, the worst possible time. Several of the villagers were still wearing their pyjamas two days after they were forced to run out into the night cold.

Another comparison with Sichuan is how the quake has affected the elderly. If the stress of the disaster wasn't hard enough already, the elderly residents of Onna are now facing the anxiety of not knowing how they will ever rebuild their homes. Many are retired and were living out their lives in comfort and security. But now, with no insurance and no possibility of work, they are hopeless for the future.

Reuters AlertNet is not responsible for the content of external websites.