Pope comforts survivors during visit to central Italy’s earthquake region

(April 28,2009): Pope Benedict XVI visited the scene of Italy's earthquake on Tuesday, to comfort survivors and demand serious soul-searching from those responsible for the shoddy construction blamed for many of the deaths. Pope Benedict visited a tent camp, a basilica and a university dormitory, whose collapse epitomized the anguish of L'Aquila, a city of 70,000, and spurred criminal investigations, into who was to blame for so many of the nearly 300 deaths in the 6.3-magnitude quake. “As a civil community, some serious soul-searching is necessary, so that at any moment responsibilities never fail,” the Pope told survivors and rescue workers during his first visit to the disaster site. “If this happens, L'Aquila, though wounded will be able to fly again,” the Pope said, referring to the city's name, eagle.
The April 6 quake claimed 296 lives in the dozens of towns and villages in the Abruzzo region of central Italy. About 50,000 people were driven from their homes, and thousands of buildings were toppled or heavily damaged. Prosecutors have opened an investigation into the shoddy construction blamed for many of the building collapses, looking into both the construction work and materials used amid allegations that sea sand was illegally mixed with cement, corroding it and weakening it.
The Pope's first stop was the tiny hamlet of Onna, which was levelled by the quake and where, around 40 of its 300 residents were killed. Some 267 survivors live in a handful of tents clustered in a parking lot. On his arrival under downcast skies, the Pope was greeted by the authorities. He shook the outstretched hands of many of the homeless who had gathered for his intimate, brief visit. “Had it been possible, I would have liked to visit each village, each neighbourhood, go to each tent camp and meet everyone,” the Pope told the survivors standing on a make shift stage in front of a tent. He appealed to government institutions and companies to turn the relief work into a long-term project for quality rebuilding. The victims, the Pope said, “are waiting to see the rebirth of their land, which must go back to be adorned with beautiful and solid homes and churches.”
In L'Aquila, the regional capital, Pope Benedict met with a dozen students outside what remains of L'Aquila's collapsed university dormitory, for days a main focal point of grief, as rescue workers searched the debris for students trapped inside. Seven died at the site. The dorm is one of the focal points of prosecutors' investigations, as well as L'Aquila's hospital, both of which were built after seismic standards in this quake-prone region were raised. The pontiff also visited the ruins of the 13th-century Santa Maria di Collemaggio basilica, the symbol of the city whose roof partially caved in during the quake. Rubble was piled up inside the church and pillars were covered to support them, as the Pope entered the ruins, fire fighters by his side. “Now that I see the destruction with my own eyes, I can see that it is even worse than I had imagined,” the Pope said as he knelt to pray before the salvaged remains of Pope Celestine V, the 13th-century hermit and saint. The pontiff had been scheduled to fly to the area by helicopter, but heavy winds and rains forced the Vatican to scrap that plan and he was taken by car instead.