ACCUMOLI // At least 150 people were killed in a powerful predawn earthquake that devastated mountain villages in central Italy on Wednesday, leaving dozens injured or trapped under the rubble and thousands temporarily homeless.
Scores of buildings were reduced to piles of masonry in communities close to the epicentre of the quake, which had a magnitude of between 6 and 6.2, according to monitors.
It hit a remote area straddling Umbria, Marche and Lazio, to the north of a region devastated by a quake in 2009.
Italy’s prime minister, Matteo Renzi, confirmed 120 deaths in and about the villages of Amatrice, Accumoli and Arquata del Tronto.
But, he warned: “This is not a final toll.”
“My sister and her husband are under the rubble, we’re waiting for diggers but they can’t get up here,” said Guido Bordo, 69, in Illica village, near Accumoli.
“There’s no sound from them, we only heard their cats. They managed to pull my sister’s children out, they’re in hospital.”
Other victims included a nine-month-old girl whose parents survived.
Two boys, ages 4 and 7, were saved by their quick-thinking grandmother who ushered them under a bed as soon as the shaking began. She also survived but lost her husband.
It was Italy’s most powerful earthquake since 2009, when 300 people died in or near the city of L’Aquila, just to the south of the area hit on Wednesday.
“Half the village has disappeared,” said Amatrice mayor Sergio Pirozzi.
Pope Francis interrupted his weekly audience in St Peter’s Square to express his shock.
“To hear the mayor of Amatrice say his village no longer exists and knowing there are children among the victims is very upsetting,” he said.
Civil protection chief Fabrizio Curcio classed the quake as “severe”.
The shocks were strong enough to be felt 150 kilometres away in Rome, where authorities ordered structural tests on the Colosseum.
Some of the worst damage was suffered by Pescara del Tronto, a hamlet near Arquata in the Marche region that “just completely disintegrated”, according to mayor Aleandro Petrucci.
At least 10 bodies were recovered there.
Accumoli mayor Stefano Petrucci fought back tears as he described the scenes in his village as “a tragedy”.
“There are people under the ruins, it is not a good situation.”
With residents advised not to go back into their homes, temporary campsites were being established in Amatrice and Accumoli as authorities looked to find emergency accommodation for more than 2,000 people.
Amatrice is a popular destination for Romans seeking cool mountain air at the height of the summer. It was packed with visitors when the quake struck at 3.36am.
Three minutes later the clock on the village’s 13th-century tower stopped.
A 5.4-magnitude aftershock followed an hour later.
The quake measured 6.2, according to the United States Geological Survey, which said it occurred at a shallow depth of 10km. Italian monitors put the magnitude at 6 and the depth at 4km.
Italy is often shaken by earthquakes, usually centred on the mountainous spine of the boot-shaped country.
* Agence France-Presse