At least 120 people have died in a deadly earthquake that leveled buildings in Central Italy.

The quake struck in the early hours of the morning when most residents were asleep, destroying homes and buckling roads in a cluster of communities 85 miles east of Rome.

Accumoli mayor Stefano Petrucci said some 2,500 were left homeless in the local community, which is made up of 17 areas.

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 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 Sicily.