Parents of earthquake victims make pleas for safer schools

SAN GIULIANO DI PUGLIA, Italy -- By the end of the mass funeral Sunday, Cire Riggio could control his rage no longer.

"I'd really like to know who built that school, I'd like to know the architect who designed it," Riggio shouted after the service for 26 children, including his twin boys, third-graders Gianmaria and Luca.

All were killed in the collapse of their school during an earthquake Thursday as they were celebrating Halloween.

"Old people, fathers, die in earthquakes. Here only children died in that cursed trap," Riggio said bitterly.

Italy has launched an investigation into why the school failed to withstand the 5.4-magnitude quake. Many experts have said that a well-built modern public building, constructed to meet earthquake standards, would be unlikely to collapse in a quake of that intensity. The town's school was built in 1953, but recently enlarged.

All nine students in the first grade and 17 other elementary school children perished, along with a teacher.

Another teacher, her pelvis crushed as she tried to encourage her first-grade students to duck under their desk, remained hospitalized Sunday with severe injuries.

In all the quake claimed 29 lives. Two elderly women also were killed in their homes when the quake struck this town of fewer than 1,200 residents.

Sunday's funeral was broadcast live on state television and attended by President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and other top officials.

The mother of 8-year-old Luigi clutched a picture of the boy striking a silly pose, with his favorite fruit, cherries, dangling from his ears like earrings.

"I am Luigi's mama," said Nunziatina Porrazzo, but she said she was speaking in the name of the mothers of all the children. "I am the mama of all these angels.

"I ask only one thing of everyone, that all schools be made safe. I don't want any mama or daddy, any one, ever to weep for their children."