’Quake Victims Prefer Tents

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31585, 24 January 1968, Page 13

’Quake Victims Prefer Tents

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) PALERMO (Sicily, January 23. The Archbishop of Palermo (Cardinal Francesco Carpino) has pleaded with Sicily’s earthquake victims to leave their sodden, flimsy tents and move to requisitioned schools and hotels.

So far only 12,300 refugees; have been persuaded to move back into buildings. Another 13,900 have flatly refused, fearing that fresh tremors will bring bricks and mortar crashing down on their heads. Cardinal Carpino urged them to overcome their fear and have “a sense of responsibility for your own health and that of your children.” A total of 206 bodies have

i been extricated from the ruins of Western Sicilian towns flattened by the earthquake of a week ago. One couple, from the stricken town of Salemi, went wild with joy yesterday when their two-year-old son, whom they believed to be dead beneath the ruins of their house, was handed back to them alive. The child had been rescued in the turmoil by neighbours. Three other small children separated from their parents while fleeing from their home were reunited with them yesterday after being taken to a Red Cross camp suffering from exposure. A Parliamentary row over allegations that bureaucracy, inefficiency and bad organisation had hampered rescue work brewed in Rome last night when Ministries reported on the situation. The Under-Secretary for the Ministry of the Interior (Mr Remo de Gasperi), said that all private and regional bodies had collaborated perfectly and worked rapidly, and that the whole emergency scheme functioned well. But the Minister of Health (Mr Luigi Mariotti), while agreeing with Mr de Gasperi, said the country needed adequate participation from the sanitary services to work out more efficient emergency schemes for such disasters.