The rescue dash will include a major field hospital, Civil Protection Minister Nello Musumeci said on Tuesday.
"While the group of Italian specialists has already been at work in Turkey since this morning, we are preparing to send other units and essential goods, including what is needed to equip an important field hospital", he said.
Speaking at the end of a long working meeting with the head of the Civil Protection Department, Fabrizio Curcio, Musumeci, who is also minister for sea policies, said that Italy's further dispatch was agreed in the last few hours with the European Commission, which coordinates the Member States' interventions.
"A special Defence ship, made available by the Navy,' Musumeci added, "will take care of the transport of the Italian mission to Turkey as soon as possible."
Rescue efforts to save those trapped under earthquake debris continue.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has declared a disaster zone in the ten provinces struck, imposing a three-month state of emergency.
Italy's efforts join other search teams and emergency aid from around the world, as rescuers working in freezing temperatures dig — often with their bare hands — through the remains of buildings flattened by the magnitude 7.8 quake.
The earthquake's devastation and destruction stretches hundreds of kilometres across south-eastern Turkey and neighbouring Syria, with thousands of buildings left as rubble and, the latest catastrophe piling yet more misery on a region already on its knees due to Syria's 12-year civil war and refugee crisis.
Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on Tuesday that an Italian man is unaccounted for in Turkey after Monday's earthquakes.
"The foreign ministry's crisis unit has tracked down all the Italians that were in the earthquake zone. Except One," Tajani said via Twitter.
"They are still looking for one of our compatriots, who was in Turkey for work.
"The foreign ministry has not been able to make contact with him so far".
Later on Tuesday Tajani told Rai television that the unaccounted for man was Angelo Zen from the province of Vicenza.
"We are in constant contact with the family," he said.
Zen, 50, is a consultant specialising in machines for jewel making who was last heard from on Sunday.
He is originally from Saronno in the province of Varese north of Milan but lives at Martellago near Venice, according to local media.
He has been working in Turkey these past weeks but his family were unable to say exactly where.
His family have requested that his case be handled with discretion.
Tajani has said Italy has been in touch with the Turkish civil protection department about him.
ANSA
