Updated 1.45pm

Searches are still going on for survivors in the rubble. Photo: ReutersSearches are still going on for survivors in the rubble. Photo: Reuters

All three children have been saved from their family home, the last boy being pulled from the rubble minutes ago.

Baby Pasquale was the first to be pulled out alive from the rubble of his home, seven hours after an earthquake hit the island of Ischia in Italy, followed hours afterwards by one of his two brothers. 

There was a hush followed by loud applause when the baby, wearing only a nappy, was rescued.

Fire crews found his brothers Mattia and Ciro, aged seven and 11, stuck under a bed nearby. They kept talking to them and fed water to them through a tube, then managed to pull Mattia free.

By noon, emergency crews said they had freed Ciro's legs and were working to release him. "I promised them that after this was all over we would all go get a pizza together," one emergency worker said on Italian television. He was eventually pulled out at 1.45pm.

The 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.

Television images showed about six buildings in the town of Casamicciola including a church had collapsed in the quake, which hit at 8.57pm.

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 US Geological Survey and the European quake agency estimated the magnitude at 4.3.

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.

Most of the damage was in the high part of the volcanic island. Hotels and residences on the coast did not appear to suffer serious damage.

Helicopters and a ferry boat brought in more rescue workers from the mainland.

Three extra ferries were provided during the night for about 1,000 residents and tourists who wanted to leave. As daylight broke, dozens of people went to the island's four ports, having decided to end their vacations early.

Photo: ReutersPhoto: Reuters

Roberto Allocca, a doctor from a local hospital, told Sky TG24 television that about 25 people had been treated for minor injuries. Most of the hospital had been evacuated and the injured were treated outside.

Some civil protection squads were already on the island because of brushfires.

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