Strong aftershocks continue to shake central Italy as rescuers search for survivors of Italy's worst quake in 30 years.

A 5.8 magnitude aftershock that struck the central Abruzzo region where 228 people died on Monday, reportedly left at least one person dead in Roio and felled structures in the already battered medieval city of L'Aquila.

Houses, centuries-old churches and other buildings have been flattened in 26 cities and towns where hundreds of emergency workers, many of them volunteers, have been using mechanical diggers and their bare hands to remove piles of rubble.

Rescuers found a 20-year-old girl alive 42 hours after the quake under the rubble of a four-storey building. And a fireman recounted how he pulled a boy alive from the mangled remains of his house after a day-long search.

He said: "All we could see was his head sticking from the rubble, his entire body was buried. We kept digging, picking piece by piece of debris and we finally managed to get him out - when we did the fatigue was great but so was our joy."

However, 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 are being stored in a makeshift mortuary at a school for Italy's Finance Police outside L'Aquila. Some 1,500 people are injured, about 100 seriously, and fewer than 50 were missing.

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.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has declared a national emergency and sent 1,000 troops to the area, promised 20 tent camps and 16 field kitchens to accommodate 14,000 people.

Mr Berlusconi said he will try to access hundreds of millions of euros in EU disaster funds to help rebuild the region. Shows of solidarity have come from home and abroad, with US President Barack Obama and Russia's Vladimir Putin among those calling him to express sympathy and offer aid.

Italian soccer teams said revenue from this weekend's matches would be sent to help victims as universities and newspapers throughout the country took collections, while hotels provided thousands of cheap rooms for survivors and rescuers.

It was Italy's worst earthquake since November 1980, when a quake measuring 6.5 killed 2,735 people. Many of the medieval villages surrounding L'Aquila were virtually flattened.

Meanwhile, it has been revealed that weeks before the quake, an Italian scientist predicted a major quake around L'Aquila based on the radon gas found in seismically active areas, but he was reported to police for "spreading alarm" and was forced to remove his findings from the internet.

"For weeks they told us to stay calm, that we could live in our houses, that there was no problem. Now we see what the problem was," one female resident of L'Aquila said.

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