Italy weeps for quake victims

Italy held a tear-drenched funeral yesterday for dozens of its earthquake victims as the country observed a day of mourning over a disaster that killed nearly 300 people.

President Sergio Mattarella, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and other leaders were among hundreds of mourners who sat solemnly behind 35 coffins in a sports hall in Ascoli Piceno.

Relatives of the dead sat alongside the flower-bedecked coffins, some draping themselves across them and sobbing inconsolably, three days after the deadly earthquake struck before dawn.

Others hugged each other tight as Giovanni D'Ercole, the bishop of Ascoli, implored them not to lose faith.

"Don't be afraid to scream your suffering, but do not lose courage," he said.

Among the coffins was a small, white casket for nine-year-old Giulia, whose body protected her younger sister, Giorgia, for long enough for the five-year-old to be pulled from the rubble virtually unscathed.

Giorgia was one of the last survivors to be rescued and there have been no reports of anyone else being found alive since late Wednesday.

Some 230 of the quake's 290 confirmed victims were buried under tonnes of collapsed masonry in the popular beauty spot's devastated centre. At least 16 foreigners died including Britons.

Nearly 400 people have been hospitalised since then, some of them with life-threatening injuries.

Some of the resorts and hamlets have been so badly damaged there are doubts as to whether they will ever be inhabited again.

The government has pledged to support immediate reconstruction.

But the clear-up operation needed first has been hampered by powerful aftershocks -- more than 1,300 since Wednesday -- which have closed winding mountain roads, damaged key bridges and made life dangerous for exhausted emergency services.

Renzi has declared a state of emergency for the regions affected, releasing an initial tranche of 50 million euros ($56 million) in emergency aid.

The total rebuilding operation is forecast to cost over a billion euros.