Investigators probe quake tragedy school

Prosecutors investigating the earthquake-triggered collapse of a school which killed 27 students have notified several people connected with the building’s construction that they are under criminal investigation, Italian state TV reported today.

Offices for prosecutors in the town of Larino, which is near San Giuliano di Puglia, the hamlet rocked by the October 31 quake, were closed for the weekend and could not be reached for comment.

Even as rescuers searched the rubble for bodies or survivors in the hours after the quake, Italian investigators said they were looking into whether shoddy construction might have caused the collapse.

More rooms had recently been built atop the 50-year-old school. Many much older structures in the town withstood the 5.4 magnitude quake.

The Italian news agency Ap.Biscom reported that six people received the criminal investigation notices.

A teacher and 26 children, including the town’s entire first grade, were fatally crushed in the rubble, and earlier this month, a boy who had been buried under the debris for hours debris died of his severe injuries, raising to 27 the number of young lives lost.