"I beg you, with my hands clasped in prayer, to multiply efforts to remedy to this tragedy," Loren was quoted as saying by the Italian daily La Repubblica on Friday.

Loren said that seeing footage of the streets of Naples and the surrounding Campania region littered by piles of trash moves her to tears.

"I look at this tragedy with deep anguish in my heart," the paper quoted Loren as saying.

Speaking from Geneva, she urged Neapolitans: "Cooperate! Make an effort! This is our problem."

Loren spent her early years in the small town of Pozzuoli, just outside Naples, and her family moved into the city during World War II. The 73-year-old Italian actress, who won the best-actress Academy Award in 1962 for "Two Women," now divides her time between Switzerland and the United States, but the paper said she recalled Pozzuoli and Naples as the places of her "dearest memories."

Since December, Naples and its surrounding areas have been plagued by tons of garbage. Collectors stopped picking up the trash because dumps are full and residents have protested against new ones. Angry residents have also taken to burning rubbish, knocking over refuse bins and dumping bags of refuse in the countryside.

The government of Premier Silvio Berlusconi has passed a series of measures aimed at solving the crisis.