Rome  - Efforts to find survivors of the earthquake that struck central Italy on Monday will continue through Sunday - three days beyond a previous limit announced by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said Wednesday.

"The search to find survivors under the rubble will continue incessantly until Easter (Sunday)," Maroni said during a visit to an operating centre in Rome that is coordinating the rescue work.

By Wednesday evening, the death toll from the temblor which destroyed scores of buildings in the city of L'Aquila and other nearby towns in the Abruzzo region stood at 272.

Rescuers, often with just their bare hands, continued sifting through smashed masonry and other debris in the hilly terrain.

The task is being made even more dangerous by dozens of powerful aftershocks that have followed the main earthquake. Monday's tremor registered around 6.2 on the Richter scale.

But late on Tuesday night, rescuers' efforts received a boost when they extracted alive Eleonora Calesini, a 20-year-old student from a Rimini who was trapped in a collapsed five-story modern apartment building for over 40 hours.

Calesini, who was found still wearing her pyjamas, was lifted by helicopter to a hospital.

Elsewhere in L'Aquila there were grim reminders of those who were not quite so lucky, including 11 corpses that have yet to be identified.

Authorities asked people with missing relatives of friends to gather at a makeshift mortuary located near a shopping mall to see if they could recognize loved ones among the dead.

A proposal by the city's archbishop to hold a state funeral for the victims on Friday was being considered authorities.

Following rainstorms that fell as tents were still being erected by authorities late Monday, people who abandoned their homes in the wake of the tremor suffered further discomfort Tuesday night as temperatures dipped to below 5 degrees Celsius.

By Wednesday morning, some 2,000 tents were housing 17,000 people, most of whom relocated from L'Aquila's city centre and neighbouring towns, including Onna and Paganica, all of which were severely damaged by the earthquake.

Another 3,000 people were staying at several hotels in other towns of the Abruzzo region, considered safe from the aftershocks which have caused more buildings to crumble in the worst hit areas.

"The people of L'Aquila are showing great dignity," the city's Mayor Massimo Cialente said speaking at an athletics field where dozens of tents have been erected.

Cialente said he has requested the Education Ministry to send large container to the city to serve as temporary classrooms for the city's children.

Some 1,000 people were injured in the earthquake with some 500 receiving treatment in hospitals situated in various parts of the Abruzzo region after L'Aquila's main hospital, which suffered severe structural damage, was evacuated on Monday.

The government says that reconstruction costs will rise to 1.2 billion euros (1.6 billion dollars) and entire towns will have to be rebuilt. Monday's earthquake was the deadliest to hit Italy in almost 30 years.

In 1980 up to 3,000 people are estimated to have died in an earthquake in the souther Campania and Basilicata regions. (dpa)