Quake nixes historic Italian snake festival

An Italian snake festival that attracts thousands of tourists will not be held this year for the first time in 300 years because of the deadly earthquake this month that damaged the town where it is held, police said.

Live snakes are draped over a wooden statue of St. Domenico on the first Thursday of May each year in the "Rito dei Serpari" or snake charmers' procession in the medieval mountain village of Cocullo, one of at least 49 towns hit by the April 6 quake.

Cocullo was spared any deaths from the quake, but the popular event had to be cancelled because several buildings including the St. Domenico church and other religious sites were badly damaged, the local police chief told Reuters.

"It's too dangerous to have thousands of tourists and pilgrims in the historic centre which is partially unusable because of the earthquake," Mayor Nicola De Risio was quoted as saying in Italian media.

"We had to take this decision with a heavy heart but we just could not risk it."

The earthquake in the central region of Abruzzo was Italy's worst natural disaster in three decades, killing 296 people, reducing large swathes of towns to rubble and leaving 63,000 people homeless.