The search for survivors of the Italian earthquake that killed at least 260 people is being hampered by aftershocks.

Rescue workers searched by lamplight in freezing temperatures for a second night.

Thousands of survivors of Italy's worst quake in three decades passed a fitful night in tent villages as a series of strong aftershocks hit the mountainous region of Abruzzo, and causing at least one more death.

Around 1,000 people remain injured, about 100 seriously, and fewer than 50 are still missing.

The strongest tremor since Monday's quake toppled buildings, including parts of the basilica and the station in the historic mountain city of L'Aquila, which bore the brunt of the disaster in the early hours of Monday.

The city's mayor said the 5.6 magnitude aftershock left one resident dead while in Rome, 60 miles to the west, a 76-year-old Roman man was reported to have died of a heart-attack.

"In the last two nights, I've slept three hours at most. I feel physically and mentally tired from the lack of sleep and the fear," said Ilaria Ciani, 35, who spent the night in a large blue tent at a survivors camp in a sports field near L'Aquila.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has declared a national emergency and sent troops to the area, set up 20 tent camps and 16 field kitchens to provide hot food and accommodation for 14,000 people.

Hundreds of emergency workers, many of them volunteers, used mechanical diggers and their bare hands to remove piles of rubble in L'Aquila and nearby villages devastated by the quake.

The death toll rose steadily throughout the day but rescuers burst into applause when a 20-year-old girl was found alive 42 hours after the quake in the ruins of a four-storey building.

"A rescue like this is worth six months work," said Claudio, a fireman from Venice.

The first funeral of a victim is due to take place in the town of Loreto Aprutino later.

At least 235 bodies were being stored in a makeshift mortuary at a school for Italy's Finance Police outside L'Aquila.

Many of the victims were students at L'Aquila's university. A fireman from the port of Pescara who came to help rescue efforts collapsed in tears after unearthing the body of his stepdaughter, who was studying there.

Working by floodlight, rescuers used a crane to gradually dismantle a ruined university dormitory in the hope of finding survivors. As darkness fell, workers dragged out the bodies of two of the four students still missing.

Monday's quake was particularly lethal because it struck shortly after 3.30am (0130 GMT) as residents slept.

It was the worst since November 1980, when some 2,735 people died in southern Italy.

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