L’AQUILA - While Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been busy with back-to-back meetings of the G8-G5 summit and bilaterals with heads of other countries in this quake-hit town of central Italy, his wife Gursharan Kaur had her own engagements that included an audience with the Pope.

Kaur was taken with wives of other top leaders by Italian authorities to have a private audience with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican in Rome, about 100 km from here. Accompanying the group were all the three wives of South African President Jacob Zuma.

The group of wives was also taken to the badly damaged areas of this earthquake-hit town to give them an idea of the devastation caused to structures in this 13th-century town by the April 6 earthquake. Nearly 300 people died, over 1,500 were injured and about 60,000 rendered homeless by the earthquake.

Italian authorities made sure that most heads of states also visited the most affected areas of the town and nothing was hidden from visitors. While US President Barack Obama pledged support to Italy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that her country would adopt the affected area for reconstruction and rehabilitation.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlesconi had got the G8 summit venue shifted from the idyllic town of La Maddalena off the Sardinian coast to this town saying that this would bring funds in billions of euros for restoring the devastated town.