A 6.2 magnitude earthquake flattened towns in central Italy in the early hours of Wednesday, killing at least 159 people and burying some alive in their sleep, with volunteers and firefighters racing to free those trapped under mounds of rubble as darkness fell. The quake razed mountain homes and buckled roads in a cluster of communities some 140 km 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 from the epicenter.
