Dozens of people are feared dead after a 6.2 magnitude earthquake struck central Italy, devastating mountain villages, with residents fleeing into the streets and blackouts near the epicentre.
The mayor of the small town Amatrice said there were dozens of victims and that his town “isn’t here any more”.
The strong earthquake struck at 3.36am and was felt across a broad swath of central Italy. Officials have confirmed 21 deaths, with many more injured or missing.
Close to the epicentre of the quake near the town of Norcia in the region of Umbria, witnesses told Italian media that numerous buildings had collapsed in communities, with an increase in the death toll highly likely.
The hardest-hit places were reported as Arquata del Tronto, Amatrice and Accumoli, with residents running into the streets as aftershocks continued into the early morning hours. As daylight dawned, residents and civil protection workers began digging out with shovels and bulldozers as dazed residents huddled in the streets.
Sergio Pirozzi, the mayor of Amatrice, near Rieti, reported extensive damage in his mountain village, which was packed with visitors at the peak of the summer season.
“There are so many dead I cannot make an estimate,” he told RAI state television. “We have already extracted several dead bodies but we do not know how many there are below.
“There are dozens of victims, many under the rubble. We are setting up a place for the bodies.”
Earlier he told the broadcaster: “Half of the town is gone.” Access to the village had been blocked, he added, making it difficult for rescue services to get through by road.
Amatrice is famous in Italy as a beauty spot and is a popular holiday destination for Romans seeking cool mountain air at the height of the summer.
Stefano Petrucci, the mayor of Accumoli, said the situation as dawn broke was worse than feared.
“Now that daylight has come, we see that the situation is even more dreadful than we feared with buildings collapsed, people trapped under the rubble and no sound of life.”
First images of damage showed debris in the street and some collapsed buildings in towns and villages that dot much of the Umbrian countryside.
The tremors were sufficiently strong to wake residents of central Rome, 90 miles (150km) away.
The US Geological Survey said the quake hit near the town of Norcia in the region of Umbria at 3.36am. The European Mediterranean Seismological Centre put the magnitude at 6.1 and said the epicentre was north-east of Rome, near Rieti.
Italy’s civil protection agency said the earthquake was severe. A spokesman for the fire department, Luca Cari, said there had been reports of victims in the quake zone, but he did not have any precise details.
The first two confirmed victims were an elderly couple whose home collapsed in Pescara del Tronto in the Marche region, east of the epicentre, according to national broadcaster Rai.
Aleandro Petrucci, the mayor of nearby Arquata del Tronto, said Pescara was one of “two or three hamlets that have just completely disintegrated”.
Another person died in Accumoli and two corpses were recovered from the rubble of a collapsed building in Amatrice.
A family of four including two young children were trapped, feared dead, in their collapsed house in Accumoli, according to its mayor.
Lina Mercantini of Ceselli, Umbria, told Reuters: “It was so strong. It seemed the bed was walking across the room by itself with us on it.”
Urbani, in the town of Scheggino, said: “Dear God it was awful. The walls creaked and all the books fell off the shelves.”
A resident of the Rieti region, which is between Rome and the epicentre of the quake, told the Rainews24 channel that she and most of her neighbours had come out on to the street after feeling “very strong shaking”.
A 5.5 magnitude aftershock hit the same region an hour after the initial quake.
Witnesses said the quake rattled furniture and swayed lights in most of central Italy.
A spokesman for the prime minister, Matteo Renzi, said the government was in touch with the civil protection agency and following the situation closely.
It was Italy’s most powerful earthquake since 2009, when about 300 people died in and around the city of Aquila, just to the south of the area hit on Wednesday.
A refuge on the Gran Sasso mountain, popular with hikers and climbers, said on its Facebook page that a large piece of rock had collapsed in Wednesday’s quake.
Italy is often shaken by earthquakes. Another quake hit the northern Emilia Romagna region in May 2012, when two violent shocks 10 days apart left 23 people dead and 14,000 others homeless.
