L’AQUILA, Italy — Bells tolled in hill towns across central Italy on Wednesday as the first funerals got underway for victims of the country’s devastating earthquake. The Vatican granted a dispensation so a funeral Mass for most of the 272 dead could be celebrated on Good Friday.
As more bodies were pulled from the rubble, some of the 28,000 homeless spent another day lining up for food and water at some of the 20 tent camps that have sprouted up around this quake-devastated city.
Pope Benedict XVI said he would visit the area soon.
Rescue efforts continued for the 15 people still missing, but officials began discussing rebuilding the stricken region and reopening schools. They stressed that it would take a month or two to have a clear idea of the extent of the damage.
“For now, the needs are basic. The people in the camps, they don’t have toothbrushes, they don’t have toothpaste,” said Massimo Cialente, mayor of L’Aquila. “You can’t find a place to buy cigarettes or get a coffee.”
The magnitude-6.3 quake hit L’Aquila and several towns in a 230-square-mile area in central Italy early Monday, leveling buildings and reducing entire blocks to piles of rubble. It was the worst quake to hit Italy in three decades.
The death toll stood at 272, and six of the victims hadn’t been identified, the ANSA news agency reported. Sixteen of the dead were children, Premier Silvio Berlusconi said.
Of the injured, 100 remained in serious condition, he said.
One 98-year-old survivor, rescued by firefighters in the hamlet of Tempera 30 hours after quake, said in an interview on private Italia Uno TV network that while she lay in her bed, surrounded by pieces of fallen plaster, she passed the time by crocheting.
Maria D’Antuono said that when firefighters arrived to help her out of her home, she ate some crackers, then told her rescuers, “At least let me comb my hair,” before she was brought outside.
The Vatican said the pope would visit the affected area sometime after Easter Sunday and that he does not want to interfere with relief operations. The pope praised the aid operations as an example of how solidarity can help overcome “even the most painful trials.”
