Violent earthquake razes towns in central Italy, death toll tops 120

A violent earthquake struck central Italy early Wednesday morning, with the 6.2-magnitude quake striking not far from Rome and razing large parts of several towns.

Tremors from the shallow quake began at just after 0330 CET and were felt across a wide area across central Italy, with the epicentre said to be close to the towns of Norcia and Amatrice in the popular tourist regions of Umbria and Lazio, with reports revealing a rising death toll after the collapse of many buildings.

At least 120 people were said to have been killed, according to local state broadcaster RAI News, which reported the mayor of Amatrice, Sergio Pirozzi, as saying: “there are so many dead I cannot make an estimate. We have already extracted several dead bodies but we do not know how many there are below.”

The European Mediterranean Seismological Centre said the magnitude of the quake was 6.1 on the Richter scale, with a relatively shallow depth of 10km and an epicentre north-east of Rome, near Rieti, while the US Geological Survey put the quake's centre near Norcia.

The chief of the Italian civil protection agency, Fabrizio Curcio, said the quake was similar in intensity to the 5.9-magnitude event which struck the nearby L’Aquila region in 2009 and left more than 300 people dead.

The agency said its officials were in the hardest hit areas and organising efforts to try and move rubble to find those buried.

“Now that daylight has come, we see that the situation is even more dreadful than we feared with buildings collapsed, people trapped under the rubble and no sound of life,” said the mayor of Accumoli, Stefano Petrucci, according to Reuters.

Close to 60 aftershocks, some of them with a magnitude of more than 5.5, continued through the morning.

The UK Foreign Office issued a message urging British citizens in the affected areas to follow the advice of the local authorities: "An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.2 struck Central Italy during the early hours of 24 August. The earthquake was also felt in Rome. If you are in the affected area, you should follow the advice of the local authorities. If you are in Italy, Civil Protection have activated a hotline 800840840 for information. To learn more about what to do before, during, and after an earthquake visit the Protezione Civile website."

Insurance company impact

From a strictly business impact, JP Morgan said a comparison with the previous L’Aquila 2009 quake indicated Wednesday's quake could be a relatively modest for insurers.

The 2009 L'Aquila earthquake led to a €130m rise in claims for insurer Generali and the bank estimated a repeat would be equivalent to 3% of consensus operating profit of €4.8bn for the full year, while Allianz saw a €84m rise from the 2009 quake and JPM estimate a repeat would be equivalent to 1% of Allianz target €10.5bn operating profit.

"The reason the loss then was not bigger is many houses in Italy are not insured, and the main risk is from business interruption for the local SMEs," analysts wrote.

"We believe the potential for large business interruption losses for the quake today is lower than for the L’Aquila quake in April 2009: this is because August is the main holiday month in Italy, when businesses are often run at a reduced pace."