Death toll in Italian quake reaches 292

ROME, April 11 (RIA Novosti) - Rescuers recovered the body of an elderly woman from the ruins of a building in L'Aquila in central Italy on Saturday, bringing the death toll from Monday's devastating quake to 292, a civil protection official said.

Although emergency services are still searching the rubble for survivors, the rescue operation is due to end on Sunday.

The quake, measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale, affected 26 cities and towns in the mountainous Abruzzo province, with some villages being totally destroyed.

The chief prosecutor in the regional capital of L'Aquila said that an investigation had begun into claims that substandard construction work led buildings to collapse during the quake.

Earlier the regional governor said around 19,000 people, affected by the earthquake, were living in makeshift camps in the regional capital, L'Aquila, and nearby villages. Another 10,000 people are staying in 170 hotels in Abruzzo.

The Italian government had allocated 30 billion euros ($40 billion) to deal with the consequences of the earthquake.