Tiny white coffins and balloons for the young victims of Amatrice

ITALY held a second mass funeral for the victims of its devastating earthquake yesterday as firefighters continued to scour the rubble for more bodies.

The service was held in a giant tent that had been hurriedly erected over- night in the hilltop town of Amatrice, where 231 of the 292 accounted-for victims died after the 6.0 magnitude quake struck last week.

Tiny white coffins, holding the bodies of children, were decorated with white balloons.

The three Britons who died in the disaster – William Henniker-Gotley, 55, his wife Maria, 51, and Marcos Burnett, 14, the son of friends – were all staying in a restored villa in the nearby hamlet of Sommati when its roof and walls came crashing down.

Sobbing relatives gathered together to commemorate 37 of the men, women and children who died. The ceremony, held just a few yards from shattered buildings on the edge of Amatrice, was attended by Matteo Renzi, the prime minister, and Sergio Mattarella, the president.

Dacian Ciolos, the prime minister of Romania, also attended – 11 members of Italy’s large immigrant Romanian population died in the quake.

The Rt Rev Domenico Pompili, bishop of the provincial capital of Rieti, read out the names of the victims – a process that took eight minutes, so long was the list.

Above him, over the altar, hung a wooden crucifix salvaged from one of Amatrice’s churches.

The Roma families that fled have been given temporary housing by local authorities. “They understand they cannot continue to live in the village, and our task is to keep them safe,” said a district council spokesman.