ROME: Britain’s Prince Charles visited on Sunday the Italian town devastated by an earthquake last year that killed 299 people.
A magnitude-6 earthquake flattened the central Italian town of Amatrice at the end of August, with aftershocks rocking the region for months afterwards.
The heir to the British throne saw first hand the rubble that still remains in the hillside town, where the bell tower of its 14th-century church crumbled to the ground during tremors in January.
He was accompanied by members of the emergency services on visiting the cordoned-off areas of the town’s historical city centre.
The town’s mayor, Sergio Pirozzi, did not accompany the prince to the so-called “zona rossa.”
“I’m looking to the future,” Pirozzi said. “I will return to the historical centre when it has been rebuilt.”
The series of earthquakes that began in Italy on August 24 last year has left tens of thousands of people homeless. Some of those people staged a protest on Saturday, claiming that the government has not offered them enough support. Prince Charles and his wife Camilla are on a six-day tour of Italy that has already taken them through Naples and to a British military cemetery near Vicenza. The couple arrived in Florence on Friday.
While Prince Charles was in Amatrice, Camilla was scheduled to meet with victims of human trafficking and domestic violence at anon-profit organisation in Florence.
A highlight of their Italy trip is expected on Tuesday, when the couple are set to meet Pope Francis and tour the Vatican. — DPA
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