A powerful earthquake shook central Italy on Wednesday, leaving at least 120 people dead and a trail of destruction across several mountain villages packed with holidaymakers.
With 368 people injured, some critically, and an unknown number trapped under rubble, the death toll from the pre-dawn quake was expected to rise, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi told reporters after visiting the badly-hit village of Amatrice.
“This is not a final toll,” he warned as hundreds of emergency services staff and volunteers prepared to work through the night in the hope of plucking more survivors from the ruins.
Renzi said it was too early to begin a debate on what might have been done to prevent the disaster.
“Today is the time for tears and emotion,” he said, vowing that his government would start reconstruction work first thing on Thursday.
Hundreds of people were to spend a chilly night in hastily-assembled tents with the risk of aftershocks making it too risky for them to return home.
Scores of buildings were reduced to dusty piles of masonry in communities close to the epicentre of the quake, which had a magnitude of between 6.0 and 6.2.
It hit a remote area straddling Umbria, Marche and Lazio at a time of year when second-home owners and other visitors swell the numbers staying there. Many of the victims were from Rome.
The devastated area is just north of L’Aquila, the city where some 300 people died in another quake in 2009.
Most of the deaths occurred in and around the villages of Amatrice, Accumoli and Arquata del Tronto.
