At least six people have been reportedly killed after a magnitude 6.2 natural disaster has shaken Rome and central Italy, destroying some buildings and trapping people under rubble, officials said early Thursday.
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At least 10 people have been reported dead in two towns which were partially demolished – the hardest-hit places were Amatrice and Accumoli, near Rieti.
“The earth is still shaking”, Eraldo Di Giacomo, a resident of Amatrice, one of the towns damaged by the quake, told Rainews 24 according to Tribune Content Agency.
“We don’t have any more light (electricity) and it is urgent to clear the access roads”, he said. “I don’t know what we’ll do”.
Mayor Pirozzi said that not only were there still people “under the rubble” but also that his town had been hit by a landslide while at least one bridge was in danger of collapsing.
Fabrizio Curcio, the head of Italy’s civil protection service, classed the quake as “severe”.
“Two parents and two children.” mayor Stefano Petrucci told RAI television.
“At that shallowness and magnitude of 6.2, we’re going to expect lots of aftershocks for next several hours and maybe the next several days”.
“Half the village has disappeared”, said Sergio Pirozzi, mayor of Amatrice, a mountain village in neighbouring Lazio that was packed with visitors at the peak of the summer season. There are people under the rubble.
Although the extent of damage and injuries was not immediately clear, the quake could be devastating.
Mayor Nicola Alemanno said no deaths have been reported in Norcia, which has a picturesque historic centre and is a popular tourist site. “The anti-seismic structures of the town have held”.
“The town isn’t here any more”, he said.
Residents of Rome, some 170 km (105 miles) from the epicentre, were woken by the quake, which rattled furniture and swayed lights in most of central Italy. “The walls creaked and all the books fell off the shelves”.
In April 2009, a 6.3-magnitude natural disaster hit central Italy, killing 295.
Italy’s government is in touch with the country’s civil protection agency, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s spokesman said on Twitter.
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Another quake hit the northern Emilia Romagna region in May 2012 – leaving 23 people dead and 14,000 others homeless. All of New Jersey’s quakes, however, have been far smaller than the Virginia natural disaster – and many have been so small that no resident reported feeling any shaking or hearing any rumbling.
