Italy's government declared a state of emergency on Thursday after two strong earthquakes struck the central Apennines and said it had earmarked 40 million euros for the disaster.
Premier Matteo Renzi was due to visit the area of central Italy where the quakes late on Wednesday panicked residents, allegedly causing one to die of a heart-attack, slightly injured dozens, badly damaged many buildings, knocked out power lines and left thousands homeless.
Wednesday magnitude 5.4 quake struck near Visso in the Marche region's Macerata province, and was followed by a 5.9 magnitude tremor in the same area two hours later. The quakes were felt in the capital, Rome, and other cities hundreds of miles away.
The quake area has been rattled by hundreds of aftershocks since Wednesday and there were three more tremors with magnitudes of above 4 on Thursday.
Across the region, hospitals, a university residence, a care home and the prison in the badly damaged hilltop town of Camerino were evacuated, while schools remained closed on Thursday as safety checks were carried out.
Visso is 70 kilometres northwest of Amatrice, which was flattened in a magnitude 6.2 quake that devastated towns in the same region on 24 August, killing at least 297 people, two-thirds of them in Amatrice.
Historic buildings have been damaged in Wednesday's quake zone, the rugged Sibilillini mountain range, which straddles the central regions of Marche and Umbria and is located about 120 kilometres northeast of Rome.
Tearful residents filed past the 15th-century church of San Salvatore in the village of Campi di Norcia, which was razed by Wednesday's quakes, and an historic church in the town Norcia was partially destroyed.
The mayor of Ussita, 5 kilometres west of Visso, told Sky Italia: "Many houses have collapsed. Our town is finished."
"We will restore everything to is former glory," Italy's reconstruction tsar Vasco Errani said on Thursday as he visited the area hit by Wednesday's earthquakes.
"Our first priority is to make sure people don't spend the night in their cars again. We are working with local mayors to ensure this," Errani said.
The civil protection agency and local mayors are organising hotel or self-catering accommodation for the thousands of people needing shelter after the earthquake, Errani said.
Renzi earlier thanked rescuers "working in the rain in the quake zones".
"All of Italy embraces the communities that have been hit once again," he tweeted.
Pope Francis also expressed solidarity with the quake area. "I am close in prayer to the people hit by the new earthquake in central Italy," the pontiff wrote on Twitter.
Rescue teams have been struggling to reach some areas but officials say the situation is not "catastrophic".
Italian interior minister Angelino Alfano said it was "miraculous" that there had been no victims given the strength of Wednesday's quakes.
The European Union is helping by providing "damage assessment satellite maps for the affected areas" and is "ready to provide further assistance," the bloc's humanitarian aid commissioner Christos Syliades said in a statement.