UPDATED 6.44pm: The death toll from the 6.2 magnitude earthquake in Italy is expected to keep rising for the next 24 hours.

Civil Protection Authorities are now saying at least 247 people have been killed from the quake that was centred north of Rome.

CNN's Barbie Nadeau told Larry Williams it will take at least 24 hours to get to some of the more secluded areas, and lift the rubble.

"These are old stone houses some of them 100-200 years old. They are not that easy to remove to see what survivors there might be."

Rescuers are still scrambling to find survivors after the shake, which hit in the dead of night local time.

More than 50 have died in the town of Amatrice. 2000 people live there, and the town is now lying in ruins.

Aftershocks could cause even more damage.

CNN's Frederik Pleitgen is there, where people are digging through the rubble.

"They know that the first 72 hours after a disaster like this are key, because usually people who for some reason get trapped underneath rubble and manage to survive, they can survive about 72 hours, so it really is a race against time."

Fluctuating visitor populations in Italian towns are making it difficult for authorities to find people and estimate the true death toll.

Europe correspondent Sabina Castelfranco said it's a beautiful area, north-east of Rome, that attracts many families and the elderly during this time of year.

She told Rachel Smalley populations can fluctuate between 2000 and 14,000.

"It is believed that they are probably going to pull out more bodies, many more victims, of this terrible disaster."

The damage caused by the earthquake which has hit Italy will far outstrip that caused by the Christchurch quake of 2011.

Associate professor at the University of Melbourne Mark Quigley said the damage will depend on natural hazards and the strengths of buildings.

"In the Italian example there's going to be landslides, there will probably be some fatalities from that."

"There will also be a lot of these older buildings, that have collapsed into rubble, whereas in Christchurch, we didn't have a lot of people killed in a lot of different buildings around the city."