A mass funeral for the victims of
a 6.2-magnitude earthquake that left a total of 291 dead will be
held Tuesday at 18:00 in the mountain village of Amatrice, which
sustained by far the greatest losses with 231 confirmed dead.
The Amatrice death toll rose earlier today after two more
bodies were pulled from the rubble.
Another 11 people died in the nearby hamlet of Accumoli and
50 died in the Marche mountain village of Arquata del Tronto,
the Civil Protection Department said.
Some 2,900 survivors are presently housed in Civil
Protection tents. Officials would not say how many are still
missing. Amatrice Mayor Sergio Pirozzo put that number at 10.
President Sergio Mattarella, Premier Matteo Renzi, and
House Speaker Laura Boldrini will attend the Amatrice funeral,
which the local prefect initially decided should be held in the
provincial capital, Rieti.
This sparked a protest by survivors yesterday. "We won't
come to Rieti, give us our dead back," they said.
"Rieti must come to us, not us go to them," one elderly man
told civil protection officials.
After phone calls between Amatrice Mayor Sergio Pirozzi and
the Italian premier, the prefect's decision was revoked.
Meanwhile a probe is ongoing into the collapse of
supposedly anti-seismic public buildings - including Amatrice's
recently renovated kindergarten, elementary and middle school.
In the nearby hamlet of Accumoli, the church bell tower
keeled over onto a nearby house, killing a family of four.
The buildings will be seized and experts will examine
what't left of them in order to determine why they gave way, as
well as the materials used for the renovations and the testing
procedures they underwent prior to being declared safe.
Prosecutors are also weighing opening a probe into the use
of public funds for anti-seismic renovations of buildings that
didn't withstand the quake.
Prosecutors in the Marche city of Ascoli Piceno are
investigating the collapse of buildings in the villages of
Amandola, where public buildings including a hospital were
damaged and had to be evacuated, Arquata, where a public school
was destroyed by the quake, and Pescara del Tronto.
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