Italy's biomedical industry has been hit hard by a fatal earthquake in the northeast, with over 100 companies and 5,000 workers affected by damage to factories and warehouses around the town of Mirandola.

Producing disposable medical supplies and specialised equipment for dialysis, transfusions and heart surgery in particular, over the last 40 years the Mirandola consortium has made a name for itself on the European market.

But damage caused by a 6.0-magnitude earthquake which hit the region on May 20 strained the industry, setting off a chain reaction as companies struggled to produce components destined for other firms assembling the products.

When a second quake struck the same area on Tuesday, factories and warehouses weakened in the first tremor crumpled to the ground or were declared unsafe.

Damage to highly specialised machinery and goods from the first quake cost the industry an estimated 300 million euros ($372 million), while the second cost around 600 million euros, according to the Repubblica newspaper.

The knock-on effect on the Italian health service could be significant: the biomedical consortium in Mirandola produces 60 percent of the products and equipment used by the country's dialysis patients.

"The first thing that urgently needs to be done is guarantee Italy's 45,000 dialysis patients the products and instruments necessary for their daily survival," said Stefano Rimondi, head of the local Assobiomedica association.

Rimondi, who is also a shareholder of Bellco, one of Mirandola's biomedical companies, said the firm "has suffered structural damage which makes it impossible either to carry on with production or manage our stocks."

"After the earthquake on May 20 we thought we would be able to begin production again within about two months. Now the situation has worsened. The last tremor has dramatically changed our prospects," Rimondi said.

In 2009, despite the economic crisis in Europe and the US, Mirandola's industrial district had a turnover of 950 million euros -- up 4.5 percent on a 12-month basis -- and 40 percent of its sales were in exports.

Like other areas in the industrial heartland of northern Italy, this part of the Emilia Romagna region is made up of vast swathes of agricultural land and factories run by small to medium-sized businesses.

The biomedic, engineering and agricultural industries in the area are worth around one percent of heavily-indebted Italy's Gross Domestic Product -- and the quakes have been an economic blow to a country in recession.

Italy's biggest farmers group, Coldiretti, has estimated the earthquakes will together cost the agricultural sector around 500 million euros.

While production of regional delicacies such as Parmesan cheese and balsamic vinegar from Modena has suffered, famed supercar makers Ferrari and Maserati and motorbike manufacturer Ducati emerged unscathed from the disasters which killed 23 people.