Earthquake claims kids

last updated 8 January 2015

San Giuliano di Puglia, Italy

Twenty-six children and a teacher were killed in southern Italy this week when a schoolhouse collapsed in an earthquake. Though most other buildings in the small town of San Giuliano di Puglia remained standing, the school was left in a pile of rubble. At a searingly emotional funeral attended by thousands, grieving parents blamed shoddy construction. “I’d really like to know who built that school,” said Cire Riggio, whose 8-year-old twins were killed. “An earthquake makes one think about the ire of a temperamental and cruel God,” wrote a columnist in the daily Il Messagero. “But it is not God who calculates the use of cement. Here, someone made the calculation who didn’t know how.”