Port au-Prince, Haiti - A funeral service was under way Saturday for Haiti's archbishop Joseph Serge Miot, who was killed in the devastating earthquake that claimed some 111,000 lives on the island nation. President Rene Preval was among the mourners, in a rare public appearance since the earthquake struck on January 12. He was seated alongside his wife Elizabeth. The couple were elsewhere when the presidential palace was destroyed in the quake.
Mourners also paid tribute to the Charles Benoit, the vicar general of the Port-au-Prince diocese, whose body was also found in the ruins of the Notre-Dame de l'Assomption cathedral in the capital Port-au-Prince. His white casket stood alongside that of Miot.
The funeral mass took place as Haitians marked a national day of repentance Saturday following the catastrophe that some reportedly regard as divine punishment.