Expo houses available, Maroni

(supersedes previous).
    (ANSA) - Rieti, September 7 - Lombardy Governor Roberto Maroni on Wednesday said prefabricated houses used during Milan's Universal Exposition last year will be made available for mountain village populations in central Italy left homeless by a 6. 2-magnitude earthquake that struck on August 24.
    Maroni, who was in the Lazio city of Rieti for a meeting with new earthquake reconstruction commissioner Vasco Errani and civil protection chief Fabrizio Curcio, said his region will "act quickly" after the civil protection defines over the next few days what is most needed in terms of housing, schools and other structures for local communities. Civil protection chief Fabrizio Curcio said after the meeting that the houses, planned as one-room housing units, were likely more suitable "as schools or as collective areas", according to local needs.
    The governor has offered 16 prefabricated three-floor houses used by workers who built the pavilions of Milan's Universal Exposition, which took place on May1-October 31 last year.
    The prefabricated buildings, which are still in the Milan area of Rho, can accommodate up to 650 people.
    Maroni said his region was cooperating with civil protection personnel to evaluate also to evaluate other forms of cooperation to provide aid and relief to those affected by the quake.
    The quake in central Italy has so far claimed the lives of 295 people and caused millions in damages in mountain towns in the Lazio, Marche, and Umbria regions, razing several villages to the ground.
    Over 2,600 people have been left homeless and are living in camps.