Funeral tears as Italy says farewell to quake dead
ASCOLI PICENO AFP (Saturday) Italy held a teardrenched funeral Saturday for dozens of its earthquake victims as the country mourned the victims of a disaster that has claimed nearly 300 lives.
President Sergio Mattarella, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and other leaders were among hundreds of mourners in a sports hall in Ascoli Piceno.
The hall in the capital of the central Marche region had been converted temporarily to a place of worship for the funeral of most of the people who perished in the villages of Arquata del Tronto and Pescara del Tronto in the region's mountainous interior.
Hundreds more stood silently outside, the sombre proceedings of the mass relayed to them by loudspeakers, three days after the deadly quake struck before dawn, killing 291 people according to the latest count.
Relatives of the dead sat alongside the flower-bedecked coffins, some draping themselves across them and sobbing inconsolably.
Others hugged each other tight as Giovanni D'Ercole, the bishop of Ascoli, implored them not to lose faith.
“Don't be afraid to scream your suffering, but do not lose courage,” he said.
Among the coffins was a small, white casket for nineyear-old Giulia, whose body protected her younger sister, Giorgia, for long enough for the five-year-old to be pulled from the rubble virtually unscathed.
Giorgia was one of the last survivors to be rescued and there have been no reports of anyone else being found alive since late Wednesday.
On Giulia's coffin a little note had been left: “Ciao little one. Sorry that we arrived too late.” It had apparently been written by one of the firemen who rescued Giorgia.
Away from the TV cameras, the tiny hamlet of San Benedetto, near Amatrice, buried one its sons, 13-year-old Sergio Giustiniani.
Head of state Mattarella vowed “we will not abandon you,” after a mourner begged him: “Don't leave us alone.” The president had earlier paid tribute to the “extraordinary effort” of more than 4,000 rescue professionals and volunteers on a brief visit to Amatrice, the small mountain town hit hardest by the quake.