Mourners wept as they touched a child’s white coffin but others could not hold back their rage
Mourners grieve for little Samuele, eight stopped to embrace the mum of one who died. He told her of the rescuers’ own despair, adding: “We would have liked to do even more.”
But the solemn mood in the hall changed dramatically when head of the Democratic Party, Maurizio Martina, walked in.
He had led the majority party in the Italian government for five years, until being defeated last month.
He was met with cries of “clown” and “shame”, fists shaken at him in rage as people yelled for justice. Anger Cuddly toys sit by Samuele’s coffin ran so high that only 19 of the victims were honoured at yesterday’s state ceremony. Other families had refused to take part.
Roberto Battiloro buried son Giovanni, 29, along with three friends who died alongside him, in his home town of Torre Del Greco. He said: “Our children are not a tool for public parades.”
Another relative said: “We support the state funeral. We don’t blame a specific government.”
The confirmed death toll from the tragedy rose by five yesterday. Romanian The Cecala family truck driver Marian Rosca, 36, died in hospital from his injuries.
And the bodies of a family of three and a man aged 31, missing since Tuesday, were found in the rubble. They were the last known to have been on the bridge at the time.
At the ceremony, the family of dock worker Andrea Cerulli, 48, told how he was only on the highway at the time because he had switched shifts to attend his grandmother’s birthday.
Ministers from Italy’s new ruling coalition, which only took power in Collapsed bridge across rails June, were cheered as they arrived. And footballers from Genovese rivals Genoa and Sampdoria were also applauded as they walked in side by side. Their games had been cancelled as a show of respect.
Standing in front of the 19 coffins, Archbishop Bagnasco told mourners the Pope had phoned him “to show us he is close”.
He told the congregation: “The bridge has fallen. Genoa, however, does not give up.”
lucy.thornton@mirror.co.uk