At least two women have died and 39 people are injured after a 4.0-magnitude earthquake hit the Italian island of Ischia.
Rescuers are desperately trying to reach two brothers trapped under rubble after the quake brought down several buildings.
They pulled free the boys’ seven-month-old brother at around 04:00 local time, several hours after the tremor struck.
The island of Ischia, off the coast of Naples, has a population of about 50,000.
Ischia is extremely popular with tourists, many of whom were out in the bars and restaurants when the earthquake hit at 20:57 – striking at a depth of around 3 miles just north of the Casamicciola commune.
One elderly woman was reportedly killed by debris falling from a church, while another body was found in the rubble of collapsed building.
At least 1,500 people have been left homeless, Il Messagero reports.
The seven-month-old boy was rescued from a family home that collapsed, to cheers from the emergency workers.
The father and two women, one of whom is pregnant, were also saved from the rubble.
Now rescuers are trying to reach the baby’s two brothers. They have been given water by the emergency workers, local media reported.
Angelo Borrelli, head of civil protection, told was quoted by La Repubblica as saying they were cautiously optimistic of reaching the boys, but warned as “more time passes the more the situation becomes complicated”.
Parts of the island were said to be without power.
A hospital in another badly hit commune, Lacco Ameno, had to be evacuated. According to local media, the injured were treated outside the building and a number of patients were airlifted to Naples.
The Italian Red Cross confirmed on Twitter they were working with local authorities.
Extra ferries, from Naples to Ischia, were laid on during the night to bring more rescue workers to the island and allow holidaymakers to leave. Dozens of people are said to have ended their holidays early and Italian media said some tourists were sleeping on benches waiting for boats to arrive.
An emergency response team was quickly on the scene, partly because additional numbers were already on Ischia to fight localized bush fires.
A series of earthquakes hit central Italy on January 18, as the region shivers in freezing temperatures.
The biggest 5.4-magnitude quake struck at 10:25 local time, with other two following. They hit the same area devastated by quakes in August 2016.
Shockwaves were felt in Rome, 60 miles to the south-west.
Almost 300 people died in the mountainous region around Amatrice in 2016. There are no reports so far of any injuries in the latest quakes.
Image source USGS
The latest quakes mainly affected three neighboring regions – Abruzzo, Lazio and Marche.
Two tremors of more than magnitude 5 hit within an hour of the first, and seismic organizations have recorded strong aftershocks since in the epicenter area some 10km south of Amatrice.
They follow some 36 hours of steady snowfall in areas around Amatrice and Norcia, which is said to be hampering emergency services’ attempts to reach affected areas. In some areas, avalanche warnings have been issued.
Schools that were not already closed in the worst-hit areas were evacuated. Rome’s underground system was shut as a safety precaution.
Two new earthquakes have hit central Italy, shaking buildings in Rome.
According to US Geological Survey, a 5.4-magnitude earthquake struck at 17:10 GMT south of Visso in the province of Macerata. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
It was followed just over two hours later by even more powerful quake.
The tremors come two months after a powerful earthquake struck slightly to the south, killing 295 people.
Image source Wikipedia
The 6.2 magnitude quake, on August 24, toppled buildings in villages in the mountainous region around Amatrice.
Amatrice is just 37 miles away from the epicenter of today’s first earthquake.
People in the towns of Pescara, Ancone and L’Aquila rushed out of their homes in panic as the ground shook.
The earthquakes rattled doors and windows in Rome, reports said. The mayor of one town said residents were without power, and there were reports of damaged buildings.
A section of a highway north of Rome was closed due to a landslide, said Ornella De Luca, a spokeswoman for Italy’s civil protection agency.
PM Matteo Renzi is on his way to Rome, local media report.
The first earthquake was relatively shallow, at a depth of nearly 6 miles.
Charlie Hebdo comes under fire on social media for publishing a cartoon depicting Italian earthquake victims as pasta dishes.
The cartoon which features in the satirical French magazine’s current issue refers to the town of Amatrice, one of the areas hardest hit by the 6.2-magnitude earthquake last week.
Amatrice is home of spaghetti all’amatriciana, a dish with ingredients including tomato sauce, and guanciale ham.
Photo Charlie Hebdo
The cartoon shows an injured man and a woman standing next to a pile of rubble from which feet can be seen. Each of the standing figures has been named after a pasta dish.
The bandaged man is shown under the words penne tomato sauce, a woman with burns is depicted as penne gratin, and bodies lying beneath layers of rubble as lasagna all beneath the heading “Earthquake Italian style”.
The image which is being circulated on social media has attracted huge criticism globally and in Italy it has made the pages of Italian national newspapers La Stampa and Corriere della Serra.
Photo Facebook
The French embassy in Italy released a statement saying the cartoons were not representative of France’s position.
It is not the first time hashtag #CharlieHebdo has been used on social media to express outrage at one of its cartoons.
Charlie Hebdo is no stranger to criticism. In 2015 it published a controversial cartoon of the young Syrian refugee Alan Kurdi who drowned while fleeing Syria and has also posted controversial sketches of the Prophet Muhammad.
At least 37 people are reported and dead and many others trapped under rubble after a 6.2-magnitude earthquake has hit central Italy.
Many of the dead were in the village of Pescara del Tronto which was leveled to the ground and there were fears the number could rise.
Much of the town of Amatrice was reduced to rubble and a family of four is feared dead nearby in Accumoli.
The earthquake hit at 03:36 local time, 65 miles north-east of Rome.
Although it struck at a shallow depth of 6 miles, its intensity was compared to the Aquila earthquake in April 2009 in which 309 people died. The epicenter was around Accumoli where several people died.
Some buildings in Rome shook for 20 seconds as the quake struck an area between the regions of Umbria, Lazio and Marche. The tremor was also felt from Bologna in the north to Naples in the south.
Photo AFP
The highest casualties were reported in the small village of Pescara del Tronto, where 10 people were reported dead, among them children. Other 20 people have been taken to hospital.
Two boys aged 4 and 7 were pulled alive from the rubble of the house they had been staying in with their grandmother, Ansa news agency reported. Rescuers said they had been sheltering under a bed.
More damage was reported a short distance up the road in Arquata del Tronto.
Some of the worst damage was in the town of Amatrice, where at least five died and rescue efforts were under way to find survivors.
The main street through the town has been devastated and emergency workers are trying to reach six people in a collapsed building.
In Accumoli, a short distance to the north, Mayor Stefano Petrucci said one person had been pulled out of the rubble during the night.
Seismologist Andrea Tertulliani said there were sure to be further, numerous shocks that would probably diminish in intensity.
Italy’s Civil Protection agency described the earthquake as “severe”.
Rescue teams are being sent to the worst-hit areas, the prime minister’s office said.
The earthquake was initially reported as being magnitude 6.4. It was followed by several powerful aftershocks, La Repubblica reported.
Seventeen people are now known to have died and another 350 were hurt in the 5.8 magnitude earthquake that hit northern Italy yesterday.
The tremor was the second in just over a week.
Dozens of aftershocks have shuddered through Italy’s northern Emilia Romagna region overnight.
The latest victim has been pulled from the rubble in the town of Medolla, some 27 miles (45km) north-west of Bologna, Italian media report.
Officials say the strongest overnight tremor had a magnitude of 3.54.
The first quake on May 20 killed seven people and left thousands homeless with the 6.0 magnitude tremor causing significant damage to the region’s cultural heritage, destroying churches and historic buildings.
Seventeen people are now known to have died and another 350 were hurt in the 5.8 magnitude earthquake that hit northern Italy yesterday
After the second quake, the number of people made homeless has now gone up from 6,000 to 14,000, the Italian government says.
A woman who was saved in the small town of Cavezzo reportedly spent 12 hours in the rubble in her kitchen. The 65-year-old managed to survive because a piece of furniture had toppled over, preventing her from being crushed by the wreckage.
She was taken to hospital.
Prime Minister Mario Monti has pledged that his government will do everything possible to restore normal life to the area, which he said was “so special, so important, so productive for Italy”.
Government troops are now deployed in the affected areas, and an emergency cabinet meeting will be held later on Wednesday.
The latest quake struck 40 km (25 miles) north of Bologna at a depth of 9.6 km (6 miles) at about 09:03 local.
Thousands of residents ran out of buildings after the tremor, which was felt as far away as Venice and the Austrian border.
The towns of Mirandola, Medolla and Cavezzo were closest to the epicentre, but the northern cities of Milan and Bologna were shaken too.
Among the dead were four people in Mirandola, including two who were in a factory that collapsed. Three people also died in San Felice, and two in Cavezzo.
In Mirandola, the San Francesco church collapsed, leaving only its facade standing.
Three people were killed at a factory that had only just been cleared for re-entry, following the earlier quake, reports said.
A parish priest in the town of Rovereto di Novi was said to have been killed by a falling beam when he went back into his church to save a Madonna statue.
“It’s a disaster, I’ve never seen anything like it,” Cavezzo Mayor Stefano Draghetti was quoted as saying by Reuters.
Emilia Romagna – one of Italy’s most agriculturally productive areas famous for many delicacies – has been struggling to recover from the previous quake.
Reports say that Tuesday’s tremor dealt a blow to the region’s world-famous balsamic vinegar industry – after the previous quake nine days ago hit Parmesan production.
In 2009, an earthquake in L’Aquila, central Italy, killed nearly 300 people.
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