At least 247 people have been killed and hundreds’ others injured by the initial quake, which flattened entire villages when it struck on Wednesday morning.
According to officials 190 of those deaths occurred in the Rieti province, while a further 57 were in the neighbouring Ascoli Piceno province.
Today, rescue workers are still searching for people trapped in the rubble in the towns of Amatrice and Accumoli, which are among the worst affected areas.
“What can I tell you? It’s a tragedy,” said the mayor of Amatrice near Rieti, Sergio Perozzi.
“Half the town is gone. There are people under the rubble… There’s been a landslide and a bridge might collapse.”
The recent quake was confirmed as the worst earthquake to strike Italy since 2009, when more than 300 people were killed in L’Aquila.
Italy is highly prone to earthquakes. Another quake hit the northern Emilia Romagna region in May 2012, when two violent shocks 10 days apart left 23 people dead and 14,000 others homeless.
An employee at the hotel, which was all but destroyed yesterday, has written the following blog post:
If one asked, ‘excuse me, where you eat the best Amatriciana?” most would say “at the Hotel Roma, Amatrice.’
The hotel was a keen producer of Amatriciana – until last night.
There is no more, now. The earthquake has killed it.
Last night there were many people who came to dinner in the Great Hall, which was filled with the tinkling of glasses and the smells of good food.
A visit to the Hotel Roma was a must for lovers of Amatriciana. It was a delight.
They pulled out two bodies today, but there were seventy diners last night.
The magnitude 6.1 quake had struck Italy at 3:36 am yesterday and was felt across a broad swath of central Italy, including the capital Rome where residents felt a long swaying followed by aftershocks.
First images of damage showed debris in the street and some collapsed buildings in towns and villages that dot much of the Umbrian countryside.The hardest-hit towns were reported as Amatrice and Accumoli near Rieti, with residents running into the streets as aftershocks continued into the early morning hours.
The European Mediterranean Seismological Center put the magnitude at 6.1. The U.S. Geological Survey put the magnitude at 6.2 with the epicenter at Norcia, about 170 kilometers (105 miles) northeast of Rome, and with a relatively shallow depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles).
On Thursday, the sun rose on frightened people who had slept in cars or tents, the earth continuing to tremble under their feet. Two aftershocks registered 5.1 and 5.4 just before dawn.
“I haven’t slept much because I was really afraid,” said 70-year-old Arturo Onesi from the town of Arquata del Tronto, who spent the night in a tent camp for survivors and rescue workers.
The earthquake was powerful enough to be felt in Bologna to the north and Naples to the south, both more than 220 km (135 miles) from the epicenter.
The populations of the four worst-hit towns – Amatrice, Pescara del Tronto, Arquata del Tronto and Accumoli – increase by up to tenfold in the summer, and many of those killed or missing were visitors. Aerial video taken by drones showed swathes of Amatrice, last year voted one of Italy’s most beautiful historic towns, completely flattened.