At least 37 people have died after a powerful earthquake struck central Italy in the early hours of Wednesday, according to local officials.
Deaths were reported in three villages in a mountainous area straddling the regions of Lazio and Marche: Amatrice, Accumoli and Pescara del Tronto.
At least 10 people died in Pescara, a hamlet that is part of the bigger village of Arquata del Tronto, according to civil protection officers cited by the ANSA news agency.
Six bodies were recovered at Amatrice, according to the president of the Lazio region, and two at Accumoli, according to the town’s mayor.
“Four people are under the rubble, but they are not showing any sign of life. Two parents and two children,” Mayor Stefano Petrucci told RAI television.
RAI quoted police as saying two people were known to have died in the nearby village of Pescara del Tronto.
The mayor of the small town of Amatrice reported extensive damage.
“Half the town is gone,” Sergio Pirozzi told RAI. “There are people under the rubble… There’s been a landslide and a bridge might collapse.”
The US Geological Survey said a 6.2 magnitude quake hit near the town of Norcia, in the region of Umbria, at 3.36 a.m. (0136 GMT).
Italy’s civil protection agency said the earthquake was ‘severe’.
“It was so strong. It seemed the bed was walking across the room by itself with us on it,” Lina Mercantini of Ceselli, Umbria, told a foreign media agency.
Olga Urbani, in the nearby town of Scheggino, said: “Dear God it was awful. The walls creaked and all the books fell off the shelves.”
Residents of Rome, some 170 kilometres (105 miles) from the epicentre, were woken by the quake, which rattled furniture and swayed lights in most of central Italy.
A 5.5 magnitude aftershock hit the same region an hour after the initial quake.
Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s spokesman said on Twitter that the government was in touch with the civil protection agency and following the situation closely.
The last major earthquake to hit Italy struck the central city of L’Aquila in 2009, killing more than 300 people.
