Death toll in Italian natural disaster rises to 73

The mayor of Amatrice near Rieti, Sergio Perozzi, told state-run RAI radio that there were downed buildings in the city center and that the lights had gone out.

The hardest-hit towns were the tiny towns of Amatrice and Accumoli near Rieti, some 100 kilometers (80 miles) northeast of Rome, and Pescara del Tronto some 25 kilometers further east. Italy’s civil protection agency, which was coordinating the rescue, said the provisional toll was 73 dead, several hundred injured and thousands in need of temporary housing, though it stressed the numbers were fluid. “I hope we get some help”.

The original 6.2 magnitude natural disaster was the strongest, but tremors were felt as far as Rome and Bologna over the course of several hours, the Times reports. He added that the region is popular with tourists escaping the heat of Rome, with more residents than at other times of the year, and that a single building collapse could raise the toll significantly. “There are voices under the rubble, we have to save the people there”.

“Now that daylight has come, we see that the situation is even more awful than we feared with buildings collapsed, people trapped under the rubble and no sound of life”, Stefano Pertucci, mayor of Accumoli mayor, told RAI-TV.

Photo: Reuters/Emiliano GrillottiA woman sits along the road following a quake in Amatrice, central Italy, August 24, 2016.

Aerial photographs showed whole areas of Amatrice, voted past year as one of Italy’s most handsome historic towns, flattened by the 6.2 magnitude quake.

Italian Premier Matteo Renzi, who is heading to the zone later Wednesday, says the immediate priority is to rescue any survivors.

“Aftershock rate is high in #Italy following M6.2 and will likely continue in the coming days”, the centre said in a tweet.

The U.S. Embassy restricted all but essential official travel to the area and recommended that U.S. citizens defer travel in these areas as well. “I could hear other dogs in other apartments”.

“I could feel the ground shake and my three dogs started to go a little insane, running around and barking”, Maurizio Serra, 56, told USA TODAY. The shocks were strong enough to be felt 150 kilometres (90 miles) away in Rome, where authorities ordered structural tests on the Colosseum.

The devastated area is just north of L’Aquila, the city where some 300 people died in another quake in 2009.

“Rocks and metal tumbled onto the streets and dazed residents huddled in piazzas as some 39 aftershocks jolted the region into the early morning hours, some as strong as 5.1”.

In May 2012, a pair of earthquakes in northern Italy killed dozens of people.

Serra, who lives on the fourth floor of a Renaissance-era building in the historical center of Rome, said he felt a couple of smaller quakes afterward.

Contributing: Charles Ventura. Steph Solis reported from McLean, Va.; Ventura reported from Los Angeles.