BEIJING, Aug. 24 (Xinhua) -- A 6.0-magnitude earthquake devastated several mountainous towns in central Italy early Wednesday, killing at least 38 people.
The earthquake hit Rieti, the capital city of Rieti Province in central Italy at 3:32 am Wednesday (0132 GMT), with a shallow depth of 4.2 km, according to the National Institute of Volcanology and Seismology. Several powerful aftershocks followed.
The temblor was strongly felt across the Lazio region and in Rome, the capital of the country, some 170 km away from the epicenter in the region of Umbria.
Amatrice and Accumoli, two small towns in Rieti Province, some 100 km northeast of Rome, were among the hardest hit, local media reported. Sergio Pirozzi, mayor of Amatrice, told local media that "most of the town is gone."
"The roads in and out of the town (Amatrice) are cut off. Half the town is gone," said Pirozzi. "There are people under the rubble... There's been a landslide and a bridge might have collapsed."
Witnesses there said the air was thick with dust and smelled strongly of gas in the two towns. The center of Amatrice was devastated, with entire buildings razed. Rocks and metal had tumbled onto the streets and dazed residents huddled in piazzas.
The quake took place in the mountainous heart of the country, which was making the rescue operation more difficult, said Civil Protection spokeswoman Immacolata Postiglione.
Speaking to journalists, Postiglione said 27 people had died between the towns of Accumoli and Amatrice, and a further 10 had died in the nearby Arquata area. Later in her press conference she upped the death toll to 38, without giving further details.
Aftershocks including a 5.5-magnitude one continued into early morning hours in villages and towns hit by the quake.
Rescue teams and citizens were at work in the early morning, digging to find survivors as voices of people trapped under rubble could be heard, ANSA news agency reported.
Civil Protection chief Fabrizio Curcio told a press conference in Rome early Wednesday that the earthquake could be compared to the strong earthquake that hit the city of L'Aquila in 2009, which left more than 300 people dead and thousands displaced.
