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Italy prepares state funeral for quake dead
AFP - Friday, April 10
L'AQUILA, Italy (AFP) - - Italians prepared Thursday to lay to rest the nearly 300 victims of a devastating earthquake in an exceptional Good Friday funeral mass with full state honours.
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Flags will fly at half mast across Italy for the national day of mourning as top government and Roman Catholic Church leaders join mourners in the Abruzzo capital L'Aquila, in the central Appenine mountains, for the observance.
While many families have retrieved the remains of their loved ones after Monday's tragedy, between 100 and 150 coffins will appear at the funeral mass, the ANSA news agency said.
The Vatican granted special permission for the mourners to take communion, normally not part of the liturgy on Good Friday, "in consideration of the exceptional nature of the event," the Holy See said in a communique.
On Thursday, President Giorgio Napolitano toured the disaster zone and blamed "widespread irresponsibility" for the collapse of many modern buildings.
Calling for an "examination of conscience" by builders, inspectors and real estate agents and warning against politicising the issue, he said: "How is it possible that essential standards were not applied, and why were the necessary inspections not carried out?"
The public prosecutor of L'Aquila has opened a probe into the issue.
The president toured the stricken walled medieval city of L'Aquila, stopping at a ruined dormitory where two lifeless bodies were retrieved early Thursday.
He also went to the nearby village of Onna, which was obliterated by the quake, losing 40 people from a population of just 300.
Some 20 million people are at risk from earthquakes in Italy, which sits atop two fault lines.
The Italian government has estimated three billion euros (four billion dollars) will be needed to repair or rebuild some 10,000 buildings damaged in the quake.
On Thursday the death toll in the disaster rose to 281, with one of the victims so far unidentified, local police said.
Between 20 and 30 people remained unaccounted for and 1,170 were injured of whom 179 are in a serious condition.
The number of people made homeless by the disaster was estimated at 28,000.
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said earlier that 20 children were among the dead.
Friday's funeral is to be held in a vast square courtyard of an army training centre near L'Aquila where most of the dead lie in a morgue.
The mass is to celebrated by L'Aquila Archbishop Giuseppe Molinari, with a homily by Vatican number two Tarcisio Bertone.
"Poetically speaking it will be very provocative" coming on Christendom's most solemn day recalling Christ's death, said Vatican expert John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter, a US magazine.
Molinari, who celebrated Holy Thursday mass at a tent village, said in the homily delivered in a voice full of emotion: "I can't say any learned words to explain what happened, but I can say that Christ has risen."
At St Peter's Basilica on Thursday, Pope Benedict XVI reserved part of the oil he traditionally consecrates in the run-up to Easter for the L'Aquila archdiocese.
"I wish to send these holy oils to our dear brother (L'Aquila Archbishop) Giuseppe Molinari, who because of the great damage caused by the earthquake cannot gather his faithful today," the pope said.
"May they accompany the time of rebirth and reconstruction, caring for the sick and sustaining hope," he said.
In the Roman Catholic tradition, the oil consecrated by priests around the world on Holy Thursday is used throughout the year on various occasions, especially in rites concerning the sick.
Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said the search for survivors would be extended by two days to Sunday, though hopes were fading fast and aftershocks were complicating efforts by destabilising the search-and-rescue sites.
At an athletics track converted into a tent village sheltering some 400 quake survivors Nicola Tudisco, a clown wearing an orange hat and a large white apron over baggy trousers, was handing out chocolate eggs and Easter bunnies to the children.
"It's the old people who really need help," he said, however. "They're the most traumatised. The children ... have had a rude shock, but they can also play and forget about it," Tudisco told AFP.
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