PESCARA DEL TRONTO, Italy _ Strong aftershocks shook earthquake-ravaged villages in the mountains of central Italy on Thursday, with rescue teams dodging falling debris and bleary-eyed survivors still holding out hope that loved ones might be found beneath the rubble.
The provisional death toll seesawed overnight, first reported to be nearing 250, then revised downward to 241 as Italian officials tried to reconcile casualty reports from remote areas hard hit in Wednesday morning's powerful temblor.
With floodlights illuminating the jagged shadows of toppled buildings, rescuers worked through the night, urgently calling for quiet when they detected any sign of life.
One girl around 8 years old was pulled out alive Wednesday night after spending at least 16 hours under the rubble, Italian news reports said. By daybreak, the work had largely become a grim routine of digging out the dead.
Some 1,200 people spent the night in emergency shelters, Italian authorities said, and many other others camped out in cars or vans, too frightened to go indoors.
"I haven't slept much because I was really afraid," a 70-year-old villager, Arturo Onesi, told the Reuters news agency. Onesi, from the devastated town of Arquata del Tronto, spent the night in a tent encampment.
The quake, with a preliminary magnitude of 6.2, struck a string of mountain towns and villages about 85 miles northeast of Rome, reducing hundreds of structures _ some of them historic buildings that had stood for centuries _ to rubble.
As the cloying white dust began to settle, the first round of expected finger-pointing began. Prosecutors in Rieti province on Thursday launched an investigation of "culpable disaster" in quake preparations, Italy's Ansa news agency reported.
The country's last major earthquake, which hit in 2009 about 50 miles south of the current quake zone, killed some 300 people and set off angry recriminations over unsafe building procedures and other safety lapses.
Officials vowed that rescue efforts would continue for as long as there was even a glimmer of hope for anyone trapped.
"Search and rescue operations will continue until all activities have been exhausted," the civil protection department said in a statement. After the previous big quake, people survived for up to 72 hours while trapped.
Governments of neighboring European countries, meanwhile, sought to account for missing nationals who had been working or vacationing in the area at the height of the summertime tourist season. Romania said five of its citizens died in the quake and nearly a dozen others were unaccounted for, and Spain reported the death of at least one Spanish national.
Across Italy, people paid tribute to quake victims. Flags flew at half-staff, and the culture ministry said all proceeds from public museums on Sunday would be donated to restoration efforts.
Italian news reports dwelled on one wrenching case: the death of an 18-month-old girl whose mother had moved away from the area after surviving the lethal 2009 quake in L'Aquila. The infant, identified as Marisol Piermarini, was killed as she slept in the family's vacation home in Arquata del Tronto, in the heart of the quake zone. Her mother survived.
