At least 17 dead as strong quake strikes Italy

At least 17 people were killed and 30 were missing in an earthquake that struck central Italy as most people lay sleeping, and the death toll was expected to rise as many homes collapsed in the Abruzzo region.

Public safety chief Guido Bertolaso said there would be "numerous victims, many injured and so many collapsed homes" as he headed to the scene, the ANSA news agency reported.

Police put the death toll at 17, with 30 people missing.

The Abruzzo capital L'Aquila, the epicentre of the 5.8-magnitude quake, was a scene of devastation as sirens blared and rescue workers raced to find people in the rubble, ANSA said.

Thousands of the city's 60,000 residents were in the streets fearing aftershocks after being startled awake by the quake just after 3:30 am (0130 GMT), the report said.

Police confirmed to ANSA that five people were killed in the small towns of Castelnuovo, one in Poggio Picenze, one in Tormintarte and two in Fossa including a three-year-old girl.

Another four children died in a hospital in L'Aquila, ANSA said.

Another eight people were missing in nearby San Demetrio dei Vestini, public safety officials said.

A student dormitory in L'Aquila was partially collapsed.

The epicentre of the quake, which was also felt in Rome, was some five kilometers (three miles) below L'Aquila, a town in the Apennine mountains, Italian public safety officials said.

Some 15,000 people suffered a power outage in the region, while part of the highway linking L'Aquila to Rome was closed, the ANSA news agency reported.

The quake came just hours after a 4.6-magnitude tremor shook Italy's north-central region with no reports of damage.

That quake occurred at 10:20 pm on Sunday near Ravenna in the Emilia-Romagna region and was exceptionally deep at some 28 kilometres, public safety officials told ANSA.

Because of its depth, the tremor was felt over a wide area, notably in the Marche region on the Adriatic coast.

People there felt both earthquakes. A powerful earthquake in the region claimed 13 lives in 1997 and damaged or destroyed priceless cultural heritage.

People inland near Bologna, as far north as Trieste and as far south as Aquila, also reported feeling Sunday's quake, ANSA added.

Italy is criss-crossed by two fault lines, with some 20 million people at risk from earthquakes.

Deadly tremors of the past include an October 2002 quake that killed 30 people including 27 pupils and their teacher who were crushed under their schoolhouse in the tiny medieval village of San Giuliano di Puglia.

Twenty-two years earlier, on November 23, 1980, a violent quake struck the southern region of Irpiona near Naples, killing 2,570, injuring 8,850 and displacing 30,000.