Strong aftershocks shook central Italy today and hampered rescue efforts after the country's worst earthquake in three decades killed at least 228 people and left thousands homeless.
The strongest aftershock since yesterday's quake scattered rescue workers and toppled buildings, including parts of the basilica and the station, as night fell on the historic mountain city of L'Aquila, which bore the brunt of the disaster.
L'Aquila's mayor said one person died in the neighbourhood of Roio, but firefighters could not confirm this. The 5.6 magnitude aftershock was felt in Rome, 100km to the west, where furniture shook in the upper floors of buildings.
"We advise people not to go back into their homes," Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi told a news conference in L'Aquila, adding that efforts to find people alive would go on for at least two more days.
Hundreds of emergency workers, many of them volunteers, used mechanical diggers and their bare hands to remove piles of rubble. Rescuers celebrated after a 20-year-old girl was found alive 42 hours after the quake under the rubble of a four-storey building, but the death toll rose steadily throughout the day.
A fireman from the port of Pescara who had come to L'Aquila to help rescue efforts collapsed in tears after unearthing the body of his stepdaughter, who was studying at the university.
At least 228 bodies were being stored in a makeshift mortuary at a school for Italy's Finance Police outside L'Aquila, local media reported.
Some 1,500 people were injured, about 100 seriously, and fewer than 50 were missing.
As night fell for a second time since the disaster, thousands of homeless people sought shelter in villages of blue tents set up by authorities.
Mr Berlusconi, who has declared a national emergency and sent troops to the area, promised 20 tent camps and 16 field kitchens to accommodate 14,000 people.
Authorities estimate 17,000 people have lost their homes, leaving them facing a grim Easter weekend. With many local churches badly damaged, people prepared to celebrate the feast in makeshift chapels in the tent villages.
Yesterday's quake was particularly lethal because it struck shortly after 1:30GMT as residents slept. Flattening houses, centuries-old churches and other buildings in 26 cities and towns, it was the worst since November 1980, when some 2,735 people died in southern Italy.
Reuters