Rescue teams were working through the night to try to find survivors under the rubble that remained of central Italian towns flattened by an earthquake that hit in the early hours of Wednesday, killing at least 159 people.

Rescuers work following an earthquake in Pescara del Tronto, central Italy, August 24, 2016.

One hotel that collapsed in the small town of Amatrice probably had about 70 guests, and only seven bodies had so far been recovered, said the mayor of the town that was one of the worst hit by the quake.

The strong 6.2 magnitude quake razed homes and buckled roads in a cluster of mountain communities 140 km (85 miles) east of Rome. It was powerful enough to be felt in Bologna to the north and Naples to the south, each more than 220 km (135 miles) from the epicenter.

"Tonight will be our first nightmare night," said Alessandro Gabrielli, one of hundreds preparing to sleep in tents erected by rescue workers in fields and parking lots, each one housing 12 people whose homes had been destroyed.

"Last night, I woke up with a sound that sounded like a bomb," he added.

Rescuers working with emergency lighting in the darkness saved a 10-year-old girl, pulling her out of the rubble alive, where she had lain for some 17 hours in the hamlet of Pescara del Tronto.

Many other children were not so lucky. In the nearby village of Accumoli, a family of four, including two boys aged 8 months and 9 years, were buried when their house imploded.

As rescue workers carried away the body of the infant, carefully covered by a small blanket, the children's grandmother blamed God: "He took them all at once," she wailed.

Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said the Cabinet would meet on Thursday to decide measures to help the affected communities.

"Today is a day for tears, tomorrow we can talk of reconstruction," he told reporters late on Wednesday as he announced 120 bodies had been found and 368 people had been taken to hospital.

TOLL COULD CLIMB

The death toll rose to 159 a few hours later. With people still unaccounted for, the civil protection department warned it could climb higher.

Aerial photographs showed whole areas of Amatrice, last year voted one of Italy's most beautiful historic towns, flattened by the quake. Inhabitants of the four worst-hit small towns rise by as much as tenfold in the summer, and many of those killed or missing were visitors.

Amatrice's mayor, Sergio Pirozzi, said its best-known accommodation, Hotel Roma, which probably had around 70 guests at the time of the quake, had collapsed and only seven bodies had been found under the rubble.

The civil protection agency said it was trying to determine how many people were staying in the hotel.

Most of the damage was in the Lazio and Marche regions, with Lazio bearing the brunt of the damage and the biggest toll. Neighboring Umbria was also affected. All three regions are dotted with centuries-old buildings susceptible to earthquakes.

Italy's earthquake institute, INGV, said the epicenter was near Accumoli and Amatrice, which lie between the larger towns of Ascoli Piceno to the northeast and Rieti to the southwest.

It was relatively shallow at 4 km (2.5 miles) below the earth's surface. INGV reported 150 aftershocks in the 12 hours following the initial quake, the strongest measuring 5.5.

Italy sits on two fault lines, making it one of the most seismically active countries in Europe.

The last major earthquake to hit the country struck the central city of L'Aquila in 2009, killing more than 300 people.

The most deadly temblor since the start of the 20th century came in 1908, when an earthquake followed by a tsunami killed an estimated 80,000 people in the southern regions of Reggio Calabria and Sicily.

Myanmar earthquake kills three, damages scores of ancient temples

A powerful earthquake shook central Myanmar on Wednesday, killing at least three people including two children, and damaging scores of centuries-old Buddhist pagodas around the ancient capital of Bagan.

A damaged pagoda is seen after an earthquake in Bagan, Myanmar August 24, 2016.

The 6.8 magnitude quake shook buildings across the Southeast Asian country, with tremors felt as far away as Thailand - where witnesses reported high rise towers swaying in Bangkok - Bangladesh and eastern India.

"We felt quite heavy shaking for about 10 seconds and started to evacuate the building when there was another strong tremor," said Vincent Panzani of charity Save the Children.

He spoke from Pakkoku, a small town about 25 km (15 miles) northeast of Bagan, the centrepiece of Myanmar's rapidly expanding tourism industry.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake struck near the town of Chauk, on the Ayeyarwaddy River south of Bagan and about 175 km (110 miles) southwest of the country's second city Mandalay, just after 5 p.m. (1030 GMT).

Fire department and Red Cross officials said two children were killed in the small town of Yenanchaung, south of Chauk.

"Two young girls died when a pagoda collapsed on a river bank," said Moe Thidar Win, deputy director of the disaster management team at the Myanmar Red Cross Society.

"One man died in a Pakokku tobacco factory when the roof collapsed on him."

In Bagan, known as the "City of 4 Million Pagodas", one female tourist was injured at a pagoda, said local official Khin Mya Lwin.

The Ministry of Information said nearly 100 of Bagan's famed pagodas, mostly built between the 11th and 13th centuries, had been damaged.

Bagan has around 2,000-3,000 pagodas and temples, spread over a 42-sq km plain ringed by mist-covered mountains. It rivals Cambodia's Angkor Wat and Borobudur in Indonesia as Asia's premier archaeological site.

SCENES OF PANIC

Elsewhere, damage appeared to have been relatively light, although reports were still filtering through as night fell.

"My house shook during the quake. Many people were scared and they ran out of the buildings," said Maung Maung Kyaw, a local official of the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) party in Chauk.

"Some of the old buildings have cracks. The biggest damage is to the bank building in the town."

The quake struck at a relatively deep 84 km (52 miles), the USGS said.

"Most of the reports of damage have been to the pagodas in the area, with dozens impacted, particularly around Bagan," said Save the Children's Panzani in Pakkoku.

"There have also been reports of damage to smaller, more basic buildings... Several of our staff who've lived in this part of Myanmar their whole lives said it was the strongest earthquake they've ever felt."

The quake shook buildings in Myanmar's biggest city, Yangon, and in other towns and cities, witnesses said.

Office buildings in the Thai capital Bangkok, to the east of Myanmar, shook for a few seconds, residents there said.

The quake was also felt in Bangladesh, to the west of Myanmar, where some people ran out into the street as buildings shook, residents said.

Myanmar is in a seismically active part of the world where the Indo-Australian Plate runs up against the Eurasian Plate.

In March, 2011, at least 74 people were killed in an earthquake near its borders with Thailand and Laos.

More than half of Bagan's pagodas were seriously damaged in a July 1975 earthquake that sent the landmark Buphaya Pagoda tumbling into the Ayeyarwaddy.