The Latest on Italy’s devastating earthquake (all times local):
7:45 p.m.
Italian police have arrested two people for allegedly looting quake-damaged homes.
Police say officers riding motorcycles Monday to navigate rubble-strewn streets arrested a Romanian man and woman.
The suspects were driving a car with German plates and were arrested for suspected looting in Preta.
The hamlet is near the hardest-hit town, Amatrice, where least 231 people perished in the Aug. 24 quake and hundreds of homes collapsed or became unsafe to inhabit. In all, 292 people are confirmed dead in several towns in central Italy.
Police say the pair, in their 40s, allegedly stole about 300 euros ($350), clothing and other items from several homes. Some people are sleeping in cars near their homes for fear of looting.
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7:10 p.m.
Authorities say two more bodies have been pulled out from the rubble of the central Italy earthquake, raising the overall death toll to 292.
Civil Protection official Titti Postiglione told reporters in Rieti, the local provincial capital, that the corpses were found Monday in Amatrice, which now counts 231 dead. She didn’t say where the bodies were found in the hill town, but all bodies found in the last few days were located in the rubble of the Hotel Roma.
Amatrice’s mayor has said about 10 people are unaccounted for. Eleven people were killed in Accumoli, a small town near Amatrice, both in the Lazio region which includes Rome, while 50 people were killed by the quake in the neighboring Le Marche region.
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5:05 p.m.
An Italian bishop says Pope Francis was among the many in Rome jolted awake by last week’s earthquake and immediately went to celebrate a Mass for those suffering in the catastrophe.
Bishop Domenico Pompili has told Corriere della Sera newspaper that Francis called him three times last Wednesday, first at 7 a.m., 3 1/2 hours after the quake struck. He said Francis was especially concerned about the children caught up in the disaster.
Pompili’s diocese includes the Apennines Mountain town of Amatrice, which saw the most dead in Italy’s Aug. 24 earthquake, 229 of the 290 confirmed dead so far.
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4 p.m.
Italy’s government has heeded the anger of quake survivors and will hold a state funeral for many of the 290 dead in Amatrice, the town hardest-hit by the quake, instead of at an airport hangar 65 kilometers (40 miles) away.
Earlier Monday, survivors in Amatrice, where at least 229 people perished in the Aug. 24 earthquake, started shouting angrily after authorities informed them the funeral Mass would be celebrated Tuesday evening at Rieti airport. Townspeople yelled they wanted to have the service in Amatrice, a medieval town in the central Apennine mountains devastated by the quake. Among those incensed was Sergio Pirozzi, the town’s mayor.
Shortly afterward, Pirozzi told his fellow citizens that Italian Premier Matteo Renzi had just called him and told him that Tuesday’s state funeral would be held in Amatrice after all.
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3:30 p.m.
Romania’s foreign ministry says it will pay to repatriate the bodies of seven Romanians who died during last week’s quake in central Italy.
A statement said the bodies will arrive in Romania from Italy on Tuesday.
The ministry said Monday that 11 Romanians were among the 290 people confirmed dead in the Aug. 24 quake. One Romanian is still unaccounted for. It says the seven are the first batch to be brought back, and others may also be as well, depending on their families’ wishes.
Some 8,000 to 10,000 Romanians were living in the area where the quake struck.
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12:05 p.m.
With thousands left homeless after Italy’s earthquake, authorities are debating how to provide warmer, sturdier housing for them besides the rows of emergency blue tents set up in the Apennine Mountains, where even summer nights can get chilly.
Nearly 2,700 people needing shelter following the Aug. 24 temblor are staying in 58 tent camps or other shelters arranged by Italy’s Civil Protection agency. Others are staying in a gym in the hardest-hit town, Amatrice and some are sleeping in cars near their damaged homes.
Italian architect Renzo Piano met Premier Matteo Renzi on Sunday. Speaking to the Corriere della Sera newspaper, Piano proposed building temporary wooden homes near the three devastated towns in central Italy so traumatized people could stay near their roots.
No housing decisions have been announced yet.
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[Source:-US News]
