Clown therapists try to ease suffering for Italy quake children

Fresh aftershocks rattled earthquake-hit central Italy last night killing at least one more person as a "clown therapist" with a red nose successfully managed to raise a laugh from two shell-shocked children."They need the chance to talk to you but mustn't be forced into being happy," Frances Calsolaro, who had driven from Milan throughout the night. "They know what the reality is, but they also need to be able to dream, their hope is hidden but remains intact," he told the Reuters news agency. “This is not funny business, it's actually very serious," said Calsolaro, dressed in a baggy pin-striped suit, a colourful jacket and a hat with a daisy stuck in it. "People don't need someone sitting high up there telling them how to deal with sadness. I genuinely want the children to think I am dumb and stupid." Another 10 to 50 similar clown therapists from his group are expected to arrive soon to cheer up the homeless living in large blue tents in open air camps in around L'Aquila, says Calsolaro. Meanwhile psychologists were trying to help a grandmother come to terms that her daughter and two grandchildren had died in the earthquake in central Italy. The latest tremors struck early this morning in L'Aquila, epicentre of Monday's 6.2-magnitude quake. The aftershocks brought down masonry from already damaged buildings and one tremor was felt as far away as Rome.

As the desperate search for survivors continues, officials raised the death toll from the quake to 250. Another 100 people are reported to be in a serious condition and some 20,000 people were made homeless. “We have no money, no documents, we have nothing,” one woman in a tent camp told the BBC. “I just can’t wait to get home.” As overnight temperatures dropped to 4-5C, thousands spent a second night in tent camps around L'Aquila, the capital of the central Abruzzo region. Marco Dolponi from Italy's Civil Protection Agency said it could be a fortnight before people were given alternative accommodation. "We are trying to get them to the hotels on the seaside, for example. But the time to let them come back to the home is difficult to say." He added that tremors were continuing and it was difficult to know when they would end.

Last night, rescuers celebrated after a 20-year-old girl was found alive 42 hours after the quake under the rubble of a four-storey building, while alpine rescue specialists earlier managed to pull a young woman, Marta Valente, from the ruins of her house in L'Aquila after an excruciatingly delicate, five-hour operation.

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children