Aftershocks rattle Italy's day of national mourning
ASCOLI PICENO, ITALY — Residents of Italian towns devastated by a magnitude-6 earthquake on Wednesday were rattled by a series of aftershocks overnight, as Italy began a day of national mourning on Saturday.
The national mourning includes a state funeral for some of the victims in Ascoli Piceno, where at least 46 people died in the mountain villages of Arquata del Tronto and Pescara del Tronto, to be attended by Premier Matteo Renzi and President Sergio Mattarella.
Ahead the funeral, caskets were lined up in a gym where mourners have been bidding farewell to loved ones, kneeling, crying and placing their hands on flower-covered caskets.
Saturday's early morning aftershock had a magnitude of 4.2, according to the Geological Service, while the Italian geophysics institute measured it at 4.
Italian authorities say the death toll in the Wednesday quake has risen to 284 people after three more bodies were recovered overnight from the rubble of Amatrice, the hilltop town that bore the brunt of the devastation.
President Mattarella has visited Amatrice, a town devastated in the earthquake that hit central Italy this week and the place with the highest death toll with 224.
Mattarella was guided by town mayor, Sergio Pirozzi, who showed him the extent of the damage. The president met and thanked rescue workers, who have been working against the clock since early Wednesday to save people trapped in rubble and recover the victims.
The president, who later attended a state funeral for some of the victims, was taken only to the edge of the town, because it is too dangerous to enter the heart of the medieval town due to the extent of the destruction.
Italy prepared for an emotional day of mourning Saturday with flags across the country to fly at half-mast in honor of the 281 who died in the earthquake.
Grieving families began burying their dead Friday as rescue workers combing the rubble said they had found no new survivors in the remote mountain villages in central Italy blitzed by Wednesday's powerful pre-dawn quake.
A local gymnasium in Ascoli Piceno has been transformed into a chapel, where bereaved relatives came to pray in front of 30 coffins, including a small, white casket for Giulia, nine, whose body protected her sister, Giorgia, five--one of the last people to be pulled from the rubble alive in Pescara del Tronto.
But some families have chosen not to participate in the solemn commemoration. "Why attend? To listen to politicians? They always say the same thing—that they stand with us and that it must never happen again... always the same thing!" said one inconsolable woman, quoted by the news agency Agi.
The first funerals were held Friday in Pomezia, south of Rome, home of six of the
victims, including an eight-year-old boy. According to the most recent official toll, at least 388 people have been hospitalised with injuries, but no one has been pulled alive from the piles of collapsed masonry since Wednesday evening.
SEARCHCONTINUES "We will go on searching and digging until we are certain there is no one left," said Luigi D'Angelo, a Civil Protection officer working in the town of Amatrice, where the death toll stands at 221.
Forestry police officer Valerio Checchi said he expected rescuers to shortly start using mechanical diggers to move debris in a sign virtually all hope of finding survivors has gone. "We will still use thermal devices that can detect the presence of human bodies." said Checchi.
As powerful aftershocks closed winding mountain roads and made life dangerous for more than 4,000 professionals and volunteers engaged in the rescue effort, survivors voiced dazed bewilderment over the scale of the disaster that struck their sleepy communities.
Renzi has declared a state of emergency for the regions affected by Wednesday's quake, which occurred in an area that straddles Umbria, Lazio and Marche.
Renzi also released an initial tranche of 50 million euros ($56 million) in emergency aid. Over 2,000 people who spent the night in hastilyerected tented villages were shaken by a 4.8 magnitude aftershock just after 6:00 am (0400 GMT) on Friday morning.
More than 900 aftershocks have rattled the region since Wednesday's quake and triggered the collapse of hundreds of old buildings across dozens of tiny communities playing host to far more people than usual because of the summer holidays. —