The Gran Sasso National Laboratory, a particle-physics research centre 15 kilometres northeast of L'Aquila in central Italy, has survived without damage the earthquake that devastated the region on 6 April, although experiments have been suspended.

The laboratory, 10 kilometres east of the quake's epicentre, is a large underground facility built deep inside the Gran Sasso mountain. Its surface structures will be used to shelter some of those left homeless by the quake, which measured 6.3 on the Richter scale and killed at least 179 people.