Italy mourns quake victims

ASCOLI PICENO, Italy — Mourners in Italy prayed, hugged, wept and even applauded as coffins carrying victims of the country’s devastating earthquake passed by at a state funeral Saturday, grieving as one nation after three desperate days of trying to save as many people as possible.

In the central town of Ascoli Piceno, they gathered to bid farewell to 35 of the 291 people confirmed dead so far after the magnitude 6.2 quake hat struck a swath of countryside early Wednesday in the foothills of the central Apennine mountains.

The caskets of 35 people had been brought to a community gym — one of the few structures in the area still intact and large enough to hold hundreds of mourners.

The local bishop, Giovanni D’Ercole, celebrated Mass beneath a crucifix he had retrieved from one of the damaged churches in the picturesque area of medieval stone towns and hamlets.

Many mourners were recovering from injuries themselves, some wrapped in bandages.

Everywhere people knelt at coffins, tears running down their cheeks, their arms around loved ones.

President Sergio Mattarella and Premier Matteo Renzi joined grieving family members, stopping to speak to some of them.