November 2, 2002	Saturday	Sha’aban 26,1423

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)

SAN GIULIANO DI PUGLIA (Italy), Nov 1: A major fresh tremor shook southeastern Italy on Friday, just as rescue workers pulled the last bodies from a school reduced to rubble by an earthquake which killed 26 small children.

Police said they had pulled the last body out of the wreckage and that the final death toll stood at 29.

The latest quake, which measured 5.3 on the Richter scale, led police to call on residents to evacuate the medieval town of San Giuliano di Puglia to avoid any more danger.

The tremor was another shock for the dazed residents of the farming town of 1,200, grieving over so many children entombed when their school collapsed like a house of cards. An entire class of six-year-olds was wiped out.

Some 26 children, mostly aged between six and 10, and a teacher were killed when a quake, measuring 5.4 on the Richter scale, hit the south-central Molise region on Thursday morning.

Two elderly women also died when their homes collapsed on them.

It was the strongest tremor to hit Italy since 1997 when a series of quakes killed 11 people in the central Umbria region.

Rescue workers, who had managed to pull out 35 people alive, mostly children, from the collapsed building, were still picking through the wreckage when the second quake struck on Friday. At least one fire fighter was injured.—Reuters