`Many dead` in avalanche-hit hotel after Italy quake

Rome: Several people have died after a ski hotel was buried by an avalanche in earthquake-hit central Italy, local media reported today quoting rescue services.

"There are many dead," Antonio Crocetta, the head of a group of Alpine police that was trying to reach the cut-off hotel, was quoted as saying.

Media reports said there had been at least 20 guests and seven staff at the Hotel Rigopiano on the lower slopes of the Gran Sasso mountain when the first of four powerful quakes hit the region yesterday morning.