Central Italy earthquake: death toll rises to 120 – as it happened

The eight-year-old girl was pulled alive from the rubble in Pescara del Tronto, one of the three towns most severely damaged by the earthquake in central Italy.

As night fell, two women ran up the street yelling: “She’s alive!”

Chief firefighter Danilo Dionesei confirmed the girl was rescued and was taken to a nearby hospital. He did not immediately give any further details about her condition.

An eight-year-old girl has been pulled out alive from earthquake rubble, according to a firefighter chief in Italy. More details soon.

The Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi, has said at least 120 people have died in the earthquake, rising from 73 earlier in the day.

Here is a summary of everything we know so far:

• At least 73 people have died and many more are missing after a 6.2-magnitude earthquake hit a string of hill towns and villages across central Italy. It struck at 3.36am when most people in the hardest-hit towns of Amatrice, Accumoli and Arquata del Tronto were asleep.

• Italy’s prime minister, Matteo Renzi, is to visit the worst-hit areas later on Wednesday. In a TV address he said the priority was to get survivors out of the rubble and promised that no area or family would be left behind.

• The army was mobilised to help with special heavy equipment and the treasury released €235m of emergency funds. Rescue workers used helicopters to pluck trapped survivors to safety in the more isolated villages, which had been cut off by landslides and rubble.

• Pope Francis thanked rescue workers and volunteers and invited everyone to join him in prayer for the victims. Six of the Vatican’s 37 firefighters have travelled to Amatrice to help civil protection workers look for survivors still under the rubble and assist those already rescued.

• Patients at the badly damaged hospital in Amatrice were moved into the streets. The mayor of Amatrice, Sergio Pirozzi, told local media: “Half the village has disappeared. The aim now is to save as many lives as possible. There are voices under the rubble, we have to save the people there.”

• Stefano Petrucci, THE mayor of nearby Accumoli, said about 2,500 people were left homeless in the local community, made up of 17 hamlets.

• The US Geological Survey said it was the largest earthquake in Italy since April 2009 when a 6.3-magnitude earthquake hit L’Aquila, killing at least 295 people and injuring more than 1,000. It said the epicentre of the Wednesday earthquake was about two miles (4km) north-east of Norcia and 40km north of Amatrice.

• France, Germany and the EU have offered their assistance. The French president, François Hollande, said France would provide “all the help that might be necessary” after a “terrible tragedy”, while the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, expressed “the deep sympathy of the German people”.

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Reuters reports that six of the Vatican’s 37 firefighters have travelled to Amatrice to help civil protection workers look for survivors still under the rubble and assist those already rescued.

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has said Germany is ready to provide any aid needed by Italy. At a news conference in Estonia, Merkel said:

The pictures we are seeing are awful. We will be ready to do everything we can to help Italy if needed, and our thoughts are with the people of the region today.

The earthquake in Italy throws the spotlight on lax construction laws, writes John Hooper.

The death toll from the earthquake that hit Amatrice and other villages in central Italy is rising at an alarming rate. But so far it looks as if the number of fatalities will be substantially lower than when an earthquake of comparable force hit the nearby city of L’Aquila in 2009, killing 309 people.

The casualty tally will nevertheless be far higher than it should be in a country of Italy’s wealth – but much lower than it might have been. The 6.2-magnitude earthquake, like the one that devastated L’Aquila, struck at night.

Had people been at work, in shops or at school, the outcome would have been much worse. Two years ago, Gian Vito Graziano, president of Italy’s National Council of Geologists, said that according to some estimates, if the L’Aquila earthquake had struck when students were in their classrooms, “the number of victims would have been thousands, not hundreds”.

A family of four, including two boys aged 8 months and nine, were buried when their house in Accumoli imploded, Reuters reports. As rescue workers carried away the body of the infant, carefully covered by a small blanket, the children’s grandmother blamed God: “He took them all at once,” she wailed.

In Amatrice, a resident named Giancarlo said: “It’s all young people here, it’s holiday season, the town festival was to have been held the day after tomorrow so lots of people came for that. It’s terrible, I’m 65 years old and I have never experienced anything like this, small tremors, yes, but nothing this big. This is a catastrophe.”

Lina Mercantini, of Ceselli, Umbria, about 75km away from the hardest hit area, said: “It was so strong. It seemed the bed was walking across the room by itself with us on it.”

Seventeen crews from the state police have reportedly arrived in the affected areas to prevent looting:

Christos Stylianides, the European commissioner for humanitarian aid and crisis management, has issued a statement. He said:

We express our heartfelt condolences and sympathy to the families and friends of those who have lost loved ones.

Our thoughts are also with the first responders and all those involved in the rescue operations.

Italy is part of our European family and as the European Union we stand in full solidarity with the Italian people and the national authorities at this time.

The EU is ready to help.

Stylianides said the commission’s emergency response coordination centre was closely monitoring the situation and had been in contact with the Italian civil protection authorities during the night regarding any help which could be requested.

So far, the Italian authorities have requested that the copernicus emergency management services provide damage assessment satellite maps for the affected area.

The EU ambassador to the US added:

Over the past seven centuries, there have been “between 20 and 30” large, damaging quakes in the central Apennines, according to Joanna Faure Walker, a lecturer at University College London’s Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction, as quoted by AFP.

• In 1703, three very powerful quakes, all above magnitude six, hit the central Apennine region encompassing Norcia in less than three weeks, killing an estimated 10,000 people.
  
• In January 1915, a 6.7-magnitude quake near Avezzano, around 70 km to the south-west of Wednesday’s event, killed about 32,000 people.
  
• In September 1997, a 6.0-magnitude quake 50km to the north-west killed 11 people and destroyed more than 80,000 homes in the Marche and Umbria regions, according to the USGS website.
  
• In April 2009, a 6.3-magnitude event 45km to the south-east, at the historic city of L’Aquila, killed around 300 people.
  

Seismologists pointed to the risk of aftershocks, which posed a threat to survivors and rescue teams because they could bring down damaged structures. “Aftershocks are likely to continue for several weeks,” said Sandy Steacy, of the University of Adelaide, Australia. “These earthquakes cause disproportionate damage for their size because they shake structures weakened in previous events.”

The earthquake hit in one of Italy’s most seismically prone regions and dangerous aftershocks are possible, scientists have said.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) reported that the quake occurred six miles (10km ) south-east of Norcia, measuring 6.2 on the moment magnitude scale and striking at a shallow depth of only 6.2 miles.

Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology placed its epicentre in Riete province, near the towns of Accumoli and Amatrice, at a depth of 4km.

Bill McGuire, the emeritus professor of geophysical hazards at University College London, told the Science Media Centre (SMC) that “earthquakes are quite common in this part of central Italy” and pointed to the complex tectonics of the Apennines – the country’s mountainous “spine”.

He added: “Although the region is not on a tectonic plate boundary, there are many active faults in the region, accumulating strain and releasing it periodically in moderate earthquakes of around magnitude 6.”

But, McGuire said, the record also shows that plus-6 quakes have also occurred in these regions. They often happen near the surface – something that makes a big difference in their impact.

The moment magnitude scale is logarithmic, which means an increase of one unit (1.0) is equal to about 32 times more energy released in the event.

The closer the event is to the surface, the more shaking there is on the ground.

At least 73 people have been killed in the earthquake, according to Italy’s civil protection unit, as quoted by AFP.

Immacolata Postiglione, the head of the unit’s emergency department, announced the new toll at a press conference in Rome as rescue efforts continued in the mountain villages devastated by the quake.

Italian police have released helicopter footage of the worst-hit areas.