Wall Street Journal- 24 Aug. 2016- Amatrice, Italy—A 6.2-magnitude earthquake struck central Italyearly Wednesday, flattening towns and killing at least 120 people, with dozens missing and many trapped beneath the rubble of buildings that collapsed while they slept.
Italian soldiers and emergency crews were aiding the injured and searching for survivors in the hardest-hit towns of Amatrice, Pescara del Tronto and Accumoli, located close to the epicenter.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said the death toll has risen to 120 people. The number of victims rose steadily throughout the day as rescue crews searched the rubble for dozens of missing people.
 “There’s nothing left, it’s unbelievable,” said Luisella Cruciani, 69 years old, who escaped her home in Amatrice by climbing out of her window. Aerial photos of the town show that it was virtually flattened.
Ms. Cruciani, whose son and husband also survived the quake, sat weeping Wednesday afternoon just outside her home, which was completely destroyed. “Yesterday I was celebrating my birthday with all my friends. And now 20 of them are dead,” she said.

The quake hit at 3:36 a.m. local time and was felt across most of central Italy, including in Rome and Florence, sending people running into the streets and cutting power.
The U.S. Geological Survey put the magnitude at 6.2 with the epicenter at Norcia, about 170 kilometers (105 miles) northeast of Rome, with a depth of about 6 miles.
Fabrizio Curcio, head of the Civil Protection Agency, said the severity of the latest quake was comparable to the one that hit the L’Aquila area of central Italy in 2009, killing more than 300 people. However, the towns involved in Wednesday’s quake are far smaller than L’Aquila.
Aid workers were bringing food and basic supplies to the hardest-struck towns. Residents of Amatrice were huddled together earlier Wednesday in the town center, wrapped in blankets and awaiting word of survivors.
The hands of a clock on a stone tower above them were frozen, marking the moment when the quake hit. Aid workers and local residents were combing through the rubble in search of survivors. With all of the residents of Amatrice and Accumoli evacuated from the town, civil protection authorities forces set up tents for short-term shelter for hundreds of people.

“We had one of the most beautiful places in Italy and now we have nothing,” said Amatrice Mayor Sergio Pirozzi.
Aid workers initially struggled to reach the center of the town because of the rubble in the streets. The location of the towns, which sit high in the Apennine Mountains, also handicapped relief efforts. Only three single-lane roads connect Amatrice with the rest of Italy.
The quake caused the floor of Luisa Fontanella’s house to collapse, sending her husband catapulting into the garage. Her toddler grandson began screaming as the house shook.
“By some miracle, we are all alive,” the 67-year-old woman said, as her grandson slept in a small playground where rescue workers were already setting up tents.
Amatrice, which sits 1,000 meters above sea level, counts fewer than 3,000 full-time inhabitants, but during July and August its population and that of the surrounding areas balloon as Romans arrive to escape the hot summers in the Italian capital. Summer also sees the return on holiday of many locals who left to find work elsewhere.

It is famous as the birthplace of one of Italy’s most famous pasta sauces—Amatriciana, a staple in restaurants in Rome and the surrounding areas. The town’s inhabitants were looking forward to the annual celebration of the guanciale-and-pecorino sauce this weekend. Instead, “we are waiting to hear if our friends are still alive,” said Ms. Fontanella.
Elsewhere, Guido Castelli, the mayor of Ascoli Piceno, said dozens of people were confirmed dead in Pescara del Tronto and surrounding towns, including a young girl.
Rescue efforts at Pescara del Tronto were slowed by damage caused to bridges. Mr. Castelli said that screams of people trapped under the rubble could be heard.
Normally, about 50 people live at Pescara del Tronto, but due to summer holidays there may have been at least 300 people there, he added.
One woman in the town shielded her two young grandchildren from the falling rubble with her body, according to firefighter Danilo Dioisi. Rescue workers pulled her and the children from the rubble alive, even as aftershocks hampered the operation, he told the Italian television network RAI.
The early morning quake was followed by about 200 aftershocks, some quite strong.
Mr. Renzi visited Amatrice Wednesday afternoon. “Italy weeps for its fellow countrymen,” he said in brief remarks earlier in the day, promising that the government wouldn’t “leave anyone alone, no family, no town, no community.”
Italian President Sergio Mattarella returned to Rome from Palermo to help oversee the rescue operation.
At his regular Wednesday audience, Pope Francis said he was “deeply saddened” by the news of the earthquake and asked the crowd to join him in praying for the victims.
Italy is particularly vulnerable to strong earthquakes, with minor quakes a common occurrence. In particular, the whole chain of Italy’s Apennine Mountains is vulnerable to seismic movements because it links two major tectonic plates, the European and the African one.
In 1976, about 1,000 were killed in Friuli in Italy’s north, while nearly 3,000 died in another quake in 1980 whose epicenter was in Irpinia, a mountainous area in southern Italy.