Prosecutors in the city of Rieti on Thursday opened an investigation into the magnitude 6.2 earthquake in the central Italian Apennines that killed over 200 people and flattened several mountainside towns.
"It was necessary to do this to be able to identify the bodies and to get a green light to bury them," chief prosecutor Giuseppe Saieva told Adnkronos.
Investigators were not currently being given access to the quake sites where rescue operations are still taking place, he said.
"Clearly it isn't possible to visit yet because the rescue teams are at work," Saievea stated.
Rescuers were on Thursday still trying to reach victims under the rubble of collapsed buildings as hopes of pulling out more survivors dwindled.
Questions are already being asked among the wider Italian public about whether more could have been done to avert the worst impacts of Wednesday’s quake in which 241 people were confirmed dead, hundreds injured and thousands left homeless.
The Apennine mountains in central Italy have the highest seismic hazard in Western Europe and strong earthquakes are common.
Modern buildings in the region are required by law to be built to high anti-seismic standards, given the number of earthquakes the area suffers.
Yet in Amatrice, one of the worst hit towns, the local hospital was rendered "unusable" by the quake, while its the historic 16th-century clock tower was one of the few structures left standing.
