The Rigopiano hotel, in a mountainous area of the Abruzzo region north-east of Rome, was rocked by a series of strong earthquakes on Wednesday.

Italian media reported three bodies had been retrieved from the site. Rescue workers declined to comment on the reports, but said they had yet to find any sign of life.

"The hotel is almost completely destroyed. We've called out but we've heard no replies, no voices," said Antonio Crocetta, the head of the Alpine Rescue squad who was on the scene.

"We're digging and looking for people," he said from the isolated location in the Gran Sasso mountain range. "There are many deaths."

Regional president Luciano D'Alfonso wrote on social media that there were 20 guests, including children, at the hotel when the avalanche hit, as well as several staff members.

Two men were outside the hotel when the avalanche struck, newspaper La Repubblica reported, so the pair were able to raise the alarm.

One of the men, 38-year-old Giampiero Parete, told rescuers he went outside to get something from his car, leaving his wife and two children inside. They are now missing in the rubble.

Guests at the hotel had checked out and were waiting for a snow plough to arrive to open up the road and let them down the mountain, according to local media. However, the avalanche struck before they had been able to leave.

Twenty firemen, two mountain rescue teams, six ambulances and local police headed for the site close to the Gran Sasso mountain.

Rescue teams on skis arrived at 4am local time on Thursday, after battling snow, wind and fallen trees.

A video distributed to media outlets shows the skiiers arriving at the hotel, which was covered in large amounts of snow and debris.

Local politician Antonio Di Marco, president of the province of Pescara, wrote on social media that the entire hotel had been "taken" by the avalanche, moving a distance of 10 metres.

An aerial photograph of the hotel, posted on social media on Thursday morning by emergency fire department Vigili del Fuoco, shows what appears to be the roof and top storey of the hotel peeking out from snow.

Photographs from before the avalanche show the three-storey hotel is part of a sprawling property, which is surrounded by trees and features a tennis court.

The avalanche struck as four quakes, of magnitude 5.2 and higher, struck 100 kilometres north-east of Rome in the space of four hours.

An 82-year-old man was killed by the tremors when a roof, which had been weighed down by snow, fell on him.

Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni called for national unity, saying Italy was caught in an "unprecedented vice" of earthquakes and heavy snows simultaneously.

The regions of Lazio, Marche and Abruzzo have recently been grappling with heavy snow. In some places, it is up to 5 metres deep, which has complicated search efforts.

with Reuters

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