“Number of Britons” are among 250 victims of earthquake.

Disaster: Search is hampered by aftershocks as death toll rises to 250

A police official said “a number of Britons” had died in the earthquake which rocked Italy on Wednesday and left at least 250 dead.

Aftershocks rattled residents and rescue workers trying to find more survivors under the rubble yesterday.

The shallow quake levelled three small towns and then a 4.3 magnitude aftershock sent up plumes of thick dust in the hard-hit town of Amatrice.

An official from the town told the BBC that at least three Britons were among the dead. However, the local police official then told reporters that had become “a number of Britons”.

The aftershock crumbled already cracked buildings and prompted authorities to close roads and sent another person to the hospital.

Firefighters and rescue crews using sniffer dogs worked in teams around the hard-hit areas in central Italy, pulling chunks of cement, rock and metal from mounds of rubble where homes once stood before the Wednesday quake.

Rescuers refused to say when their work would shift from saving lives to recovering bodies, noting that one person was pulled alive from the rubble 72 hours after the 2009 quake in the Italian town of L’Aquila.

“We will work relentlessly until the last person is found, and make sure no one is trapped,” said Lorenzo Botti, a rescue team spokesman.

Worst affected by the quake were the tiny towns of Amatrice and Accumoli near Rieti, 60 miles north-east of Rome, and Pescara del Tronto, 15 miles further to the east.

Many were left homeless by the scale of the destruction, their homes and apartments declared uninhabitable.

“Last night we slept in the car. Tonight, I don’t know,” said Nello Caffini as he carried his sister-in-law’s belongings after being allowed to go into her home in Pescara del Tronto.

Charitable assistance began pouring into the earthquake zone in trafficclogging droves yesterday. Church groups from a variety of Christian denominations, along with farmers offering donated peaches, pumpkins and plums, sent vans along the one-way road into Amatrice that was already packed with emergency vehicles and trucks carrying sniffer dogs.

Italy’s civil protection agency said the death toll had risen to 250 early with at least 365 others injured. Most of the dead – 184 – were in Amatrice.

Picture: PA. Rescuers make their way through destroyed houses in Pescara Del Tronto.