Italy earthquake: Video shows woman dragged from rubble as death toll rises to 73

A woman is brought out of the wreckage and taken away on a stretcher - as mayor speaks of more 'voices under the rubble'

The powerful earthquake which ripped through mountains in central Italy has claimed 73 lives, according to the most recent count.

And as the death toll of one of Italy's worst natural disasters in recent years has risen throughout the day, a video emerged of a woman being carried out of the rubble.

At least 73 people have been killed and thousands left homeless after the 6.2 magnitude tremor razored buildings to the ground and crumpled roads in the early hours of Wednesday morning some 140 km (85 miles) east of Rome.

The mayor of one of the worst affected towns has said yet more "voices under the rubble" can be heard as many people remain missing following the huge quake.

Now a video shows a terrified woman being rescued from debris, bricks and mortar by teams of emergency workers in the town of Pescara.

A group of men pull away wreckage before bringing down a dark-haired woman on a stretcher wrapped in a red blanket. She holds her hand over her mouth as she is taken away for medical treatment.

The mayor of Amatrice, one of the worst affected towns, said it was likely many more people were trapped beneath bricks and mortar who desperately needed saving.

"The aim now is to save as many lives as possible," Sergio Pirozzi told RAI.

"There are voices under the rubble; we have to save the people there."

Residents responded to wails muffled by tonnes of bricks and mortar, sifting through the rubble with their bare hands before emergency services arrived with earth-moving equipment and sniffer dogs. Wide cracks had appeared in buildings still standing.

In the nearby town of Accumoli, also badly affected by the quake, a family of four including two young boys aged 8 months and 9 years old were buried when their house in Accumoli imploded.

The children's grandmother wailed that God had taken her family as rescue workers carried away the body of the infant in a small blanket.

"He took them all at once," she said.

Special heavy equipment was mobilised by the army, while the country's treasury released 235 million euros (£199 million) of emergency funds. Pope Francis cancelled some of his general audience at the Vatican to pray for the victims.

Amatrice, which was voted one of Italy's most beautiful historic towns last year, was shown in aerial photographs to be mostly flattened by the 6.2 magnitude quake.

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

"It's all young people here, it's holiday season, the town festival was to have been held the day after tomorrow so lots of people came for that," said Amatrice resident Giancarlo.

"It's terrible, I'm 65 years old and I have never experienced anything like this, small tremors, yes, but nothing this big. This is a catastrophe," he said.

Stefano Petrucci, the mayor of Accumoli, said some 2,500 were left homeless in the 17 hamlets that make up the local community.

The national Civil Protection Department said some survivors would be put up elsewhere in central Italy, while others would be housed in tents that were being dispatched to the area.

Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi said he would visit the disaster area later in the day: "No one will be left alone, no family, no community, no neighbourhood. We must get down to work .. to restore hope to this area which has been so badly hit," he said in a brief televised address.

Other affected villages include Pescara del Tronto and Arquata del Tronto. Although the initial death toll currently stands at 73, rescue teams have only just reached some stricken areas.

The earthquake caused damage in three regions - Umbria, Lazio and Marche - and was felt as far away as the southern Italian port city of Naples.

The hospital in Amatrice was among the buildings that were badly damaged, with patients moved into the streets.

RAI reported that two Afghan girls, believed to be asylum-seekers, were also missing in the town.

The US Geological Survey, which measured the quake at 6.2 magnitude, said it struck near the Umbrian city of Norcia, while Italy's earthquake institute INGV registered it at 6.0 and put the epicentre further south, closer to Accumoli and Amatrice.

The damage was made more severe because the epicentre was at a relatively shallow 4 km below the surface of the earth. Residents of Rome were woken by the tremors, which rattled furniture, swayed lights and set off car alarms in most of central Italy.

"It was so strong. It seemed the bed was walking across the room by itself with us on it," Lina Mercantini of Ceselli, Umbria, about 75 km away from the hardest hit area, told Reuters.

Olga Urbani, in the nearby town of Scheggino, said: "Dear God it was awful. The walls creaked and all the books fell off the shelves."

INGV reported 60 aftershocks in the four hours following the initial quake, the strongest measuring 5.5.

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 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.

Additional reporting from Reuters