Italy: Residents evacuated from quake-hit town

A number of the child victims of Thursday's earthquake in San Giuliano di Puglia in southern Italy have had to be buried in adult coffins, because the town has run out of small, white ones.

Residents of the remote village spent last night outdoors or in tents, fearing aftershocks from an earthquake that crushed a school on top of 26 children and killed three adults.

Traumatised locals suffered a mild aftershock before dawn today, a day after two strong aftershocks – one registering 5.3 magnitude – rumbled through the town, sending grief- and panic-stricken residents into the streets.

The shocks on Friday prompted authorities to order everyone evacuated from the town centre to a tent city erected on a sports field, where residents set bonfires and bundled themselves in blankets to stay warm overnight.

Rescue workers extracted the last body on Friday from the rubble of the school where the 26 children and one teacher died. Two town residents were killed in their homes in Thursday’s quake.

Attention began to turn to accusations that shoddy construction in a quake-prone zone may have been to blame.

Illegal construction is rampant in southern Italy, and prosecutors on Friday opened an investigation into the collapse of the school, one of the few buildings in town which was completely destroyed by Thursday’s 5.4-magnitude quake.

Critics also questioned why authorities hadn’t designated the region, about 140 miles southeast of Rome, a quake-prone area, which would have required stiffer, anti-earthquake building regulations.

Civil protection officials were due to meet today to discuss risks in the region. More than 3,000 people across several towns in the area remained homeless.

The shock of Thursday’s loss has turned the town San Giuliano di Puglia silent. This remote, tight-knit community of fewer than 1,200 people is composed largely of farmers producing olive oil.

“In this moment more than in any other, you can’t express your sadness,” said 69-year-old Matteo Campanelli, who lost four grandchildren in the rubble. “They were children. Let’s hope that the angels embrace them.”

He spoke at the entrance of a gymnasium outside the crumbled town centre that had been converted into a morgue, where families wailed alongside open caskets.

In most coffins, the faces of the children had been covered. But a few blackened, lifeless baby faces peeked out above basketballs, photos, and soccer jerseys. Some of the children were placed in big mahogany coffins because the small, white wooden ones for children had run out.

Funeral services for the dead were scheduled for tomorrow.

The school itself was a 35ft pile of stone and bent metal littered with Puss in Boots books, an ET pencil case, backpacks and a shoe.

Rescuers trying to extract the final corpses hurtled down the heap of rubble when the aftershocks rumbled through town. But they returned to remove the final body, that of a teacher credited with saving several pupils.

“She’s a hero. She pushed all her children out and then the building collapsed on her,” said Stefan De Mistura, a former UN official and the head of the Italian Red Cross. ”She was shouting for the children to go out.”

A teacher who survived, Clementina Simone, said she was giving her students a geography lesson about earthquakes this week near Mount Etna in Sicily when the earth shook.

“I was told I had lost all of my nine first grade pupils,” said Simone. “I wanted to go back and help, but

the rescuers wouldn’t let me.”

However, one first-grade girl, seven-old Veronica, told reporters on Friday from the hospital that she had survived by hiding under a desk.

Pope John Paul II, appearing at his studio window overlooking St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, offered prayers for the victims and encouragement to survivors and the rescue crews.

With the last body removed, though, attention shifted to why the 50-year-old yellow complex, which housed a nursery, elementary and middle school, collapsed while other buildings remained standing.

The ANSA news agency reported that a second storey had been added to the original structure in recent years and that renovations were carried out two years ago in which heavy cement was applied to the structure to try to reinforce it.

In addition to the structural questions, the last time authorities updated quake plans for the region, San Giuliano di Puglia was not considered at-risk for strong earthquakes, engineer Enzo De Crescio told private TG5 television. The school, he said, did not meet earthquake safety standards.

Enzo Boschi, president of the National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology, said the region should certainly be considered at-risk for quakes, and urged residents to demand their mayors designate it as such.

A consumer protection group, Codacons, said it had launched a campaign for safety in schools a few months ago right in the area hit by Thursday’s quake. It said its nationwide survey of school buildings had found that 27% of buildings needed urgent work and that many schools lacked escape plans.

Grieving residents were reluctant to talk to reporters, particularly about the building issue, and were otherwise overwhelmed by the loss.

“All these babies are dead,” said Campanelli, the grandfather. “Let’s say they went in their sleep. There were two or three moments – they wouldn’t have realised.”