After funeral plan met with fury, Italy relents
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ROME — Italian quake survivors rebelled in anger Monday over the government’s plan to hold a state funeral for their loved ones in an airport hangar in a distant town, where scores of bodies are being kept in refrigerated trucks, and let them watch it on screens from near their emergency tent camp.
One relative of 7-year-old twins who perished in central Italy’s Aug. 24 quake was so upset by the announcement he could barely speak, holding up seven fingerswhenexplaining how old the children were. The mayor of Amatrice, the hardest-hit of the three medieval towns flattened by the quake, was also upset.
“Give us back our dead!” yelled onemanin the crowd of several dozen survivors.
Sensing a public relations disaster, Italian Premier Matteo Renzi’s government quickly reversed course, and he said the latest state funeral will take placeTuesday in the devastated Apennines hill town.
So far, 231 of the quake’s 292 victims have been found in Amatrice, with the death toll rising by two Monday afternoon when two bodies were extracted from rubble.
The bodies of some 10 people are believed to be still buried under the rubble of hundreds of buildings that collapsed, many reduced to piles of stones. Hundreds of people were injured.
Last week, a stream of ambulances brought more than 100 victims in body bags from Amatrice and another hard-hit town, Accumoli, to the airport at Rieti, 40 miles away. There they were being kept in refrigerated trucks parked in the hangar. Some relatives who live elsewhere in Italy had sent hearses with coffins to claim a loved one’s body for funerals elsewhere.
But nearly 80 bodies that families hoped would be buried near Amatrice or Accumoli remained at the hangar, and now, after the government relented, the corpses were going to be transferred back to the town.
Amatrice Mayor Sergio Pirozzi told a crowd that Renzi had just spoken with him by phone. “He granted the people’s appeal,” the mayor said.
Later, Renzi told state TV: “There were so many polemics, but it’s absolutely right the people be able to weep for their dear ones in their place, their village.”