(fixes overall death toll - 292 not 291)A mass funeral for the victims of a 6.2-magnitude
earthquake that left a total of 292 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prefect's decision was revoked.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 house, killing a family of four. The
buildings will be seized and experts will examine what's 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.
In the Marche city of Ascoli Piceno, prosecutors are
investigating collapses 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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