Eight bodies have been pulled from the rubble of an apartment building that partially collapsed in Italy, fire crews say.

A five-storey apartment building has partially collapsed along a railway line near the southern Italian city of Naples, and authorities are digging by hand to find anyone trapped.

The captain of the shipwrecked Costa Concordia has returned to court to appeal against being sacked, and said he will “certainly” take command of a ship again.

Police are searching for the killer of a candidate in local elections in the southern Italian town of Pompeii after his headless body was found two days after he disappeared on his way to work.