The two surveyors killed in the basilica of St Francis as a devastating earthquake rocked the region were being mourned yesterday in the Italian town of Assisi. Bruno Brunacci (40) and Clau dio Bugiantella (45) were killed alongside two Franciscan friars on Friday when a second quake struck while they were inspecting damage to the 13th-century pink stone church from an earlier tremor.
Mr Bugiantella was buried yesterday morning in the nearby village of Petrignano and Mr Brun acci was buried in Assisi after an open-air service later in the day. The two friars, Father Angelo Api (48) and Polish novice Borowec Zazislaw (24), will be buried in the basilica grounds today.
Ms Luciana Brunacci, the surveyor's widow, and his sister, Ms Antonella Petrucci, demanded an official explanation of why the men were sent to the scene while tremors were still rocking the area.
Seismologists said more than 200 aftershocks rippled through Umbria and Marche after Friday's quakes, which came nine hours apart and measured 5.5 and 5.6 on the Richter scale.
"They treated my brother like cannon fodder," Corriere della Sera newspaper quoted Ms Pet rucci as saying. "They sent him there to be smashed to pieces with no checks, no safety, not even a helmet . . . They had nothing, my brother and Claudio Bugiantella, nothing to evaluate the cracks 20 metres up. They were there waiting to die," she said.
Dramatic television footage filmed by a cameraman allowed into the basilica captured the moment the second quake hit and two chunks of the vaulted, frescoed ceiling caved in, raining down rubble and sending up a cloud of smoke like an bomb.
Two priceless frescoes, one attributed to Cimabue and the other to the school of Giotto, were badly damaged but the most famous works, 14th-century frescoes painted by Giotto on the side walls, survived cracked but largely intact. Art experts began the daunting task of sifting through the piles of debris to piece the frescoes back together, but said it would be nearly impossible.
The bishop of Assisi, Sergio Goretti, led 200 mourners in an open-air mass held at a makeshift altar in a car park in front of 14 Red Cross tents. "My heart is torn between joy and suffering," the bishop said. The Italian Prime Minister, Mr Romano Prodi, declared the quakes, which also affected many other towns in the region, a huge blow to Italy's cultural heritage. "We've been hit by a very big natural disaster, bigger than at first was thought," he said in Rome, where the cabinet approved emergency measures to grant a total of 856 billion lire ($500 million) to the worst-hit regions.
Eleven people died in the twin quakes. Aside from the state aid, money poured into other accounts opened to collect funds to help thousands made temporarily homeless, repair the damage and restore art treasures. Among big donors were top fashion designer Gianfranco Ferre, who gave 100 million lire ($60,000), and Santo Versace, brother of the murdered stylist Gianni Versace, who gave 50 million lire.
Authorities closed the historic centre of the medieval hilltop town and urged the millions of tourists who usually flock there to stay away.