L’AQUILA — Thousands of weeping mourners took part Friday in an emotional funeral Mass for the victims of an earthquake that devastated the mountainous Abruzzo region of central Italy, leaving 289 people dead.
The funerals were held as Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said the government had deployed hundreds of police and troops to deter looters and had already made some arrests.
The funeral service was led by the Vatican’s second highest official, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who told the mourners that death teaches us that "everything can stop in a moment." When everything ends, he said, "All that remains is love."
Emotions ran very high in the crowd. Sobs could be heard. Friends and family comforted each other while Red Cross volunteers distributed bottles of water to distraught mourners.
The fact that Vatican had granted a special dispensation to hold a Mass on Good Friday, the only day on the Roman Catholic calendar on which Mass is not normally said, added to the emotion of the day. Priests wore flowing white robes draped with purple, the color traditionally worn for funerals.
As the service began under partly cloudy skies in a vast parade ground, there were 205 coffins laid out in the vast square, brown for adults and white for children. Most were covered with wreaths of flowers.
The coffins of four young sisters from the Germinelli family lay side by side, bearing their names and dates of birth: Rosa 1992, Michaela 1995, Chiara 1998, Giuseppina 2002. Each had a large bunch of white lilies wrapped in cellophane with a ribbon reading "From Papa."
"We don’t even have more tears to cry," said a woman who identified herself only by her first name, Lorella. "We’re realizing we are nothing. Life can slip through your hands from one minute to the next."
Another woman, Imma Abate, wept as she greeted friends. The family who lived in an apartment she let out had all died: a husband, a pregnant wife and their 2-year-old child. "I want to go away," Mrs. Abate said. "I want to leave Italy."
Friends gathered around the coffin of Alessio Di Simone, born in 1984, who died in the student dormitory that collapsed in L’Aquila, the town worst hit by the predawn earthquake Monday. On his coffin they had placed a photograph of Alessio smiling with a garland of leaves around his head.
A woman named Elena said she had lost her cousin, who had died at the age of 47 along with his wife. "I imagine my cousin in a good moment when we were walking together," she said, "and I repeat that moment over and over in my head."
Pope Benedict XVI, in a message to survivors of the 6.3 magnitude earthquake, said that he felt "spiritually among you" and that he shared their anguish.
The message was read by the pope’s secretary, Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, at the opening of the collective funeral. Pope Benedict plans to visit the quake area in the coming weeks.
The pope "from the start has not stopped praying for you, and today he wanted to be with you," Cardinal Bertone said.
Prime Minister Berlusconi, who attended the funeral mass, told a news conference here that more than 1,300 members of Italy’s security forces, including the military, were now patrolling the area looking for looters. He said at least four people already hat been arrested, found with objects "that probably came from a home," and would be quickly put on trial.
Mr. Berlusconi also said the area had endured at least 826 aftershocks since the quake, including 186 on Thursday, but that they were mostly minor and he urged people not to panic. "This cannot worry us," he said.
Nonetheless some of the aftershocks, including a few felt in nearby Rome, damaged buildings in medieval towns and unnerved many of the 17,000 people living in tent villages. Thousands more survivors are being housed in hotels.Mr. Berlusconi also said that the government would draw up a list of monuments that foreign countries could choose from and become responsible for their restoration. President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had already expressed "enthusiasm and want to pursue this," he said.
Mr. Berlusconi also promised that the government would work more rapidly to limit the "suffering and discomfort of people" than other governments faced with similar events had done in the past.
"People have been asking me, please don’t leave us alone. I made a promise to them in front of their coffins," he said. "The government has assumed this responsibility."
The funeral mass was broadcast live on national television, and the government declared Friday a day of national mourning. Flags flew at half staff, shops lowered their shutters or turned off lights and traffic wardens removed their brightly colored jackets. A minute of silence was observed in dozens of places, from airports to the Vatican museums.
A representative of the Italian Muslim community, Mohamed Nour Dachan, also participated in the funeral, and many of the rescue workers helping in the relief effort were present.
More than 5,000 people participated in the funeral, officials said.
"We have cried together, we have prayed together next to the coffins of people no longer here," said Monsignor Giuseppe Molinari, the archbishop of L’Aquila, as he read off a list of first names of many of the victims. "Not even the tragedy of the earthquake will take them from our hearts."
Five days after the earthquake, rescuers were still digging bodies from the rubble, with a 53-year-old woman and her teenage daughter found dead in the wreckage of their home overnight, bringing the toll to 289.
But the Civil Protection Agency, which is coordinating Italy’s response to the crisis, said the search was almost over.
Elisabetta Povoledo contributed reporting from Rome and Meg Bortin from Paris.