Quake kills at least two on Italian holiday island, tourists flee

ROME (Reuters) - An earthquake hit the tourist-packed Italian holiday island of Ischia on Monday night, collapsing buildings, killing at least two people and injuring dozens, officials said.

Residents and tourists on the island off the coast of Naples ran out on to the narrow streets from homes and hotels. Fearing aftershocks, many decided to leave the island early.

Italian Carabinieri police officer and a doctor carry a child after an earthquake hit the island of Ischia, off the coast of Naples, Italy August 22, 2017.

Television images showed about six buildings in the town of Casamicciola including a church had collapsed in the quake, which hit at 8:57 p.m. (1857 GMT).

The quake hit a few days before the first anniversary of a major quake that killed nearly 300 people in central Italy, most of them in the town of Amatrice.

Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology put the magnitude of Monday's quake at 4.0, revising it up from an initial 3.6, but both the U.S. Geological Survey and the European quake agency estimated the magnitude at 4.3.

The director of the island's hospital said two people were killed and about 40 injured. One of victims was killed when she was hit by falling masonry from the church of Santa Maria del Suffragio, the Civil Protection Department in Rome said.