"There are many dead," Antonio Crocetta, the head of a group of Alpine police that was trying to reach the cut-off hotel said.
Some dead were found inside the Hotel Rigopiano in the town of Farindola on the Gran Sasso mountain in the central Abruzzo region, Al Jazeera reported.
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 on Wednesday.