The death toll from the earthquake that devastated central Italy in August rose to 299 on Tuesday when an elderly woman from Amatrice succumbed to the injuries she sustained in the tremor.
Franca Marchesi, 74, died after 82 days in hospital in a critical condition. She she was pulled out from underneath the rubble of Amatrice's Hotel Roma which was badly damaged in the 24 August quake along with much of the mountain town.
"It is with great sadness that we learn of another life this monster has taken away," said the quake-hit town's mayor Sergio Pirozzi.
"To stay put, rebuild and look to the future is the only way to achieve justice for the victims and to keep hope alive in survivors," Pirozzi said in Rome after a meeting with premier Matteo Renzi.
Amatrice, in northern Lazio, was the town worst hit by August's magnitude 6.2 tremor with 238 of the victims coming from the town.
The Hotel Roma remains under observation and the street next to it is closed to traffic.
The mountainous border area between Lazio, Umbria, Marche and Abruzzo has been hit by four major temblors and jolted by thousands of aftershocks since the 24 August quake.
The aftershocks have frayed residents' nerves and pose a threat to unstable, quake-damaged buildings.
The Italian government has allocated up to eleven billion euros to rebuild the quake zones in its 2017 budget, and is prepared to hike the deficit further if additional funds are needed, Renzi announced on 2 November.
The quakes have left thousands of dwellings in ruins, 22,000 people homeless and have badly damaged many priceless artworks and churches in the central Apennines.
