The Associated Press

L’AQUILA, Italy - The death toll from Italy’s worst earthquake in three decades jumped to 207 on Tuesday as rescuers dug desperately through collapsed buildings looking for a dwindling number of missing.

A strong aftershock sent emergency workers scurrying from a partially collapsed university dormitory - a reminder of the continued danger in the quake zone.

Premier Silvio Berlusconi surveyed the devastated region by helicopter and said the rescue efforts would continue for two more days - after which any of the trapped would have little chance of survival.

He said 15 people were still missing.

“The rescue efforts will continue for another 48 hours from today until it is certain that there is no one else alive,” Berlusconi told reporters.

The magnitide-6.3 quake struck the central Italian city of L’Aquila and surrounding villages early Monday, leveling buildings and reducing entire blocks to a pile of rubble and dust.

Rescuers worked overnight inside the four-story dormitory and pulled two bodies from the rubble. They ran out, appearing confused, when the 4.9-magnitude aftershock hit at 11:26 a.m.

As many as four students could still be inside the dormitory, Berlusconi said.

Berlusconi said that at least 100 of the roughly 1,000 injured people were in serious condition. He said 190 of the victims had been identified.

Emergency workers were hunting for others pinned under rubble elsewhere in L’Aquila, a historic city of some 70,000 people.

There have been a series of aftershocks since the quake early Monday, which also left tens of thousands homeless. Tuesday’s aftershock appeared strongest in L’Aquila, a city of Romanesque, Gothic, Baroque and Renaissance architectural treasures in a valley surrounded by the snowcapped Apennine mountains.

Two buildings in Pettino, a suburb of L’Aquila, collapsed following the aftershock, the news agency ANSA reported, citing fire officials. No one was believed to be inside either building.

The ground shook in the nearly leveled town of Onna, about six miles (10 kilometers) away, but caused no panic.

While the elderly, children and pregnant women were given priority at tent cities in the area, others were sleeping in cars or making their own arrangements to stay with relatives or in second homes out of the quake zone.