A strong earthquake brought down buildings in mountainous central Italy early on Wednesday, trapping residents and sending others fleeing into the streets, with at least six people believed killed.
The 6.2 magnitude quake struck at 3:36 a.m. (0136 GMT) and was felt across a broad swath of central Italy, including the capital Rome where residents felt a long swaying followed by aftershocks. 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 worst hit towns were believed to be Accumoli, Amatrice, Posta and Arquata del Tronto, Fire Department spokesman Luca Cari told Reuters, adding that helicopters would be sent up at first light to assess the damage.
Many buildings in center of Amatrice were razed by the 6.1 magnitude quake, which struck at 3:36 a.m. Wednesday. As dawn broke, residents with shovels and emergency workers with bulldozers were beginning to try to reach people trapped under the debris and clear blocked roads.
"Three quarters of the town is not there anymore," Amatrice mayor Sergio Pirozzi told RAI. "The aim now is to save as many lives as possible. There are voices under the rubble, we have to save the people there."
Two bodies have been pulled from the rubble in Amatrice so far, although the mayor of the other hard-hit town of Accumoli, Stefano Petrucci, says a family of four is buried without any signs of life.

The mayor of Accumoli said a number of buildings had been badly damaged.

“Four people are under the rubble, but they are not showing any sign of life. Two parents and two children,” Petrucci told RAI television.
RAI quoted police as saying two people an  were known to have died in the nearby village of Pescara del Tronto. The first two confirmed victims were an elderly couple whose home collapsed, local police said.
Aleandro Petrucci, the mayor of nearby Arquata del Tronto, said Pescara was one of “two or three hamlets that have just completely disintegrated.”
A resident of the village told Rai that she had been woken by the shaking in time to witness the wall of her bedroom cracking open. She was able to escape into the street with her children.
Another person died and a family of four including two young children were trapped, feared dead, in their collapsed house in Accumoli, according to its mayor.
 
Multiple aftershocks
The US Geological Survey measured the quake at magnitude 6.2 and placed the epicenter near the town of Norcia, in the region of Umbria, about 170 kilometers (105 miles) northeast of Rome, and with a relatively shallow depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles). The European Mediterranean Seismological Center put the magnitude at 6.1. 
Italy’s civil protection agency said the earthquake was “severe.”
Residents of Rome, some 170 km (105 miles) from the epicenter, were woken by the quake, which rattled furniture and swayed lights in most of central Italy.
"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 Reuters.
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."
The Italian earthquake institute (INGV) reported 60 aftershocks in the four hours following the initial quake, the strongest measuring 5.5. It measured the original quake at 6.0.
Italy sits on two fault lines, making it one of the most seismically active countries in Europe.
The last major earthquake to hit the country struck the central city of L'Aquila in 2009, killing more than 300 people.
The most deadly since the start of the 20th century came in 1908, when an earthquake followed by a tsunami killed an estimated 80,000 people in the southern regions of Reggio Calabria and Sicily.

Source: Arab News