Rome, July 8 - Leaders of the world's wealthiest and most industrialised countries are being briefed about emergency evacuation plans by Italian authorities as the earthquake-hit town of L'Aquila plays host to G8 and G5 leaders during the three-day (July 8-10) summit here.

World leaders, including Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, arriving here are being briefed on evacuation plans, with 12 helicopters on standby to move them to Rome, in case of an emergency, from the mountain town over 100 km away.

Though the earthquake is not even on the agenda of the world leaders, they will have it in the back of their minds as they sit down to discuss global issues like economic slowdown, climate change, food and energy security and other things.

About 90 percent of the world's economy will be represented at the venue. US President Barack Obama, for whom it will be the first G8 summit, will lead the list of top leaders from the world's most industrialised countries, including Britain, Russia, Germany, France, Canada, Japan and hosts Italy, for the 35th annual meeting of the forum founded in 1975.

Emerging economies like China, India, Mexico, Brazil and South Africa, which form the G5, will interact as a group and separately with the G8 leaders.

This 13th-century town of central Italy's Abruzzo region was hit by a devastating earthquake of 5.8 magnitude on the Richter scale April 6 this year, leaving nearly 300 dead, 1,500 injured and about 60,000 homeless.

Hosts Italy and the global participants cannot really brush the calamity off their minds given the fact that the last of tremors here, measuring 4.