Three powerful earthquakes struck central Italy within an hour today, rocking the snow-covered mountainous region where nearly 300 people were killed last year.
There were no immediate reports of casualties today in the region north of Amatrice but tremors were felt sixty miles away in Rome, where the subway was closed and parents were asked to pick up their children from schools which were evacuated.
The tower of one of Amatrice's churches was toppled in the earthquakes.
Pope Francis was giving his weekly general audience in the Paul VI Hall in the Vatican at the time the tremors hit Rome.
According to a reporter for the Catholic News Service, the tremors were not felt in the hall.
The first tremor had a preliminary magnitude of 5.3 and struck at about 10.25am (0925 GMT), according to the US Geological Survey.
A second, with a magnitude of 5.7 hit the same area around 50 minutes later, and 10 minutes later a third was measured at a magnitude of 5.3. Aftershocks continued to hit the area after the quakes.
Emergency response efforts and transport were complicated by heavy snowfall in the past week in the earthquake-zone, where more than 1.5 metres of snow has fallen.
Mayor Maurizio Pelosi of Capitagno, near the epicentre, said that many roads had been blocked because of the snow even before the earthquakes had hit the region.
A hotel worker in the town, Giuseppe Di Felice, told the state-run RAI radio that people could not get out of their homes. "It's apocalyptic," he said.
The region is about 62 miles north-east of Rome.
An Italian politician, Antonio Tajani, who is president of the European Parliament, said that tremors were "felt as far as Rome [but it] appears there are no victims."
On January 14, Pope Francis baptised 13 babies from central Italy, in a gesture of closeness to the victims of last year's earthquakes. The baptisms took place in a private ceremony in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae, where he lives.
The following day, the Pope met with youths from the parish of St. Mary in the Setteville neighborhood on the eastern edge of Rome, where Francis said he had baptised the child of a man who lost his wife in one of the earthquakes.
"'I lost my love,' he told me," the pope said. "One may think: How can this man have faith after this tragedy?"
