A 65-year-old woman was pulled out alive after lying for 12 hours in the rubble of her kitchen in an Italian town hit by Tuesday's deadly earthquake. 

Firefighters told Sky TG24 TV that a piece of furniture, which had toppled over during the 5.8 magnitude quake that left 16 dead and 14,000 people homeless in the Emilia Romagna region north of Bologna, saved the woman from being crushed by the wreckage. She was taken to a hospital for treatment Wednesday.

The building in the town of Cavezzo had been damaged in a first quake, on May 20, and had been vacant since. The woman had just gone back inside it Tuesday morning to retrieve some clothes when the latest temblor knocked down the building, firefighters said. 

By late Tuesday, the death toll throughout the region stood at 16, with one person missing: a worker at the machinery factory in the small town of San Felice Sul Panaro. Some 350 people also were injured.

Originally government officials had put the death toll at 17, and there was no immediate explanation for the lowered toll.

Factories, barns and churches fell, dealing a second blow to a region where thousands remained homeless from the May 20 temblor, much stronger in intensity, at 6.0 magnitude.

At least 16 die as 5.8-magnitude earthquake hits Italy

The two quakes struck one of the most productive regions in Italy at a particularly crucial moment, as the country faces enormous pressure to grow its economy to stave off the continent's debt crisis. Italy's economic growth has been stagnant for at least a decade, and the national economy is forecast to contract by 1.2 percent this year.

 The area encompassing the cities of Modena, Mantua and Bologna is prized for its super car production, churning out Ferraris, Maseratis and Lamborghinis; its world-famous Parmesan cheese, and less well-known but critical to the economy: machinery companies.

AP / Luca Bruno

People stand in front of a collapsed building in Cavezzo, northern Italy, on Wednesday.

 After the second earthquake, Italy's Prime Minister Mario Monti pledged that the government would do everything possible to restore normal life to the area, which he said was "so important, so productive for Italy," the BBC reported.

Government troops had been deployed to the quake-struck areas, and a cabinet meeting would planned for later on Wednesday, according to the BBC. 

The country's main business association warned on Wednesday that the earthquakes would have a prolonged impact on the region.

"The earthquakes in May, which had very serious effects on people's lives, will also have prolonged consequences for some of the most important industrial regions in Italy and for an area with strong manufacturing activity," business lobby Confindustria said in an economic report.

"This can only worsen an already very difficult situation," it said. 

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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Updated at 4:10 p.m. ET: MILAN, Italy -- An earthquake struck northern Italy on Tuesday, killing at least 16 people, damaging buildings and spreading panic among thousands of residents still living in tents after a tremor shook the region just over a week ago.

The 5.8 magnitude quake left 14,000 people homeless in the Emilia Romagna region north of Bologna, one of Italy's most agriculturally and industrially productive areas.

Salmoirago Paolo / EPA

A volunteer helps people evacuate the Tesoreria Comunale and Marino Palace offices in downtown Milan after Tuesday's earthquake.

The United States Geological Survey said the quake, which struck at 9:00 a.m. local time (3 a.m. ET), was centered 25 miles northwest of Bologna and was felt across much of northern and central Italy.

Prime Minister Mario Monti said: "I want to assure everyone that the state will do all that it must do, all that is possible to do, as fast as it can to guarantee the return to normality in a region so special, so important, so productive for Italy." 

The earthquake was felt from Piedmont in northwestern Italy to Venice in the northeast and as far north as Austria. Dozens of aftershocks hit the area, some registering more than 5.0 in magnitude.

The temblor terrified many of the thousands who have been living in tents or cars since the May 20 quake and created a whole new wave of homeless.  Seven people were killed in the earlier quake.

AP Photo / Luca Bruno

A young girl runs outside tents housing people made homeless in a May 20 earthquake in northern Italy. Another deadly quake hit the area on Tuesday.

"I was shaving and I ran out very fast, half dressed," a resident of Sant'Agostino, one of the towns devastated in the quake earlier this month, told AP Television News. 

That quake destroyed hundreds of buildings, including ancient churches and castles, and forced more than 7,000 people to sleep outdoors in tents.

It also hit production of some of the area's most internationally famous produce, including Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. Farmers estimated the damage to agriculture in one of Italy's most fertile zones at more than 200 million euros (around $251 million).

While Tuesday's quake was about 100 times less intense than the one May 20, its death toll was more than twice as high.

People trapped under rubble
On Tuesday, officials said operations to rescue people from the rubble had been hampered by disruption to the mobile phone network. 

"The town has been largely damaged. There are people under the rubble, we don't know how many," a police officer from Cavezzo told Reuters.

Train services around Bologna, near Modena, were disrupted, media said, and schools and other public buildings had been evacuated as far south as Florence.

"We felt a very strong tremor," said Raffaella Besola, a resident of Bologna.

Television footage on ITV News showed evacuees from the previous quake peering out of shaking tents in disbelief.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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