Italy yesterday bid a tearful farewell to dozens of those who died in the earthquake as the nation mourned the victims of a disaster that claimed nearly 300 lives.
President Sergio Mattarella, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and other leaders were among hundreds of mourners at a sports hall in Ascoli Piceno, capital of the central Marche region.
Relatives of the dead sat alongside flower-covered coffins, some draping themselves across them and sobbing inconsolably. Others hugged each other.
Among the coffins was a small, white casket for nine-year-old Giulia, whose body protected her younger sister, Giorgia, 5, long enough for her 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.
On Giulia’s coffin a little note had been left: “Ciao little one. Sorry that we arrived too late.” It had apparently been written by one of the firemen who rescued Giorgia.
Away from the TV cameras, the tiny hamlet of San Benedetto, near Amatrice, buried one of its sons, 13-year-old Sergio Giustiniani.
“We will not abandon you,” Italy’s president told the mourners after earlier paying tributes to the “extraordinary effort” of more than 4,000 rescuers and volunteers during a brief visit to Amatrice, the small mountain town hit hardest by the quake.
Some 230 of the quake’s 291 confirmed victims were buried under tonnes of collapsed masonry in Amatrice’s devastated centre.
Three more bodies were plucked from the town’s Hotel Roma overnight and there are fears yet more bodies will be recovered. An elderly man from Arquata died in hospital, taking the toll in that area to 50.  Page 11