ITALIAN PRESIDENT Giorgio Napolitano became the latest public figure to express his solidarity by visiting the earthquake-devastated Abruzzo region yesterday as the city of L’Aquila prepared itself for today’s state funeral for some 150 of the 279 victims.
Although he was quick to offer words of comfort to Monday’s earthquake survivors and also words of praise and encouragement for the 8,500-strong rescue service, the president did not dodge the controversy over why the earthquake had wreaked such havoc.
In particular, he wanted to know why a series of anti-seismic measures for the region may not have been implemented: “It’s not about seeing who is right or wrong, who is responsible and who is not. What we have to understand is how can it happen that clearly defined, thought-out, preventive regulations that have been made into law somehow have not been applied.
“And this cannot have happened because of a lack of checks and controls and various responsibilities – because a lot of people are involved in the building of an apartment block or the purchase and building of a house. And nobody should turn a blind eye, neither the buyer nor the seller nor the official called on to check things over,” said the president.
Mr Napolitano went on to say that the image that would remain with him longest was that of the village of Onna “just about completely disintegrated” by the earthquake.
Prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who for the first time since Monday did not travel to the earthquake zone, announced yesterday that his cabinet would prepare a special “Earthquake Decree” next week, which among other things would suspend the payment of electricity, gas, mortgage and income tax bills for those caught up in the disaster. For the second time in two days, the prime minister also appealed to Italians to stop sending food and clothes to Abruzzo but rather to make cash donations to the many emergency bank accounts, if they wished to help.
On a day that Mr Berlusconi said he had received a phone call of solidarity from Taoiseach Brian Cowen, it emerged that one Irishman, 38-year-old Ray Begley, was among the survivors of the earthquake.
Mr Begley, who is married to an Italian woman of L’Aquila origin, moved to the city four years ago, having taught English in Rome for two years.
He, his wife Sabine and their four-year-old son Lorenzo Joseph lived in their own house about one kilometre from the city centre. All three were awake when the earthquake struck, because of the tremors shaking the ground earlier in the night and because the little boy was not well. When the earthquake struck, they scrambled to safety, being forced to wriggle their way out of the house under a garage door that had been bent and jammed by the tremors. Although Mr Begley’s house was seismic proof, he, like some 28,000 others, is now effectively homeless and faces an uncertain future. All his funds were invested in the L’Aquila house, which cannot now be inhabited, and he has also lost his employment because the language school he worked for is no longer operating.