Amatrice marks ten years since central Italy earthquake as reconstruction lags

Night of remembrance

Amatrice commemorated the tenth anniversary of the central Italy earthquake on 24 August with a vigil and 239 bell tolls, one for each resident killed in the town. At 03:36, the exact minute the first tremor struck in 2016, residents observed a minute of silence before the bell tolled. Italian President Sergio Mattarella issued a statement describing the disaster as a painful chapter in national history and urged authorities to strengthen disaster prevention and emergency management. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni attended the commemoration in the afternoon to lay a wreath at the memorial for victims. Following the wreath-laying ceremony, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, the president of the Italian Bishops' Conference, celebrated a memorial mass in the town.

The 2016 earthquake and its toll

The initial shock occurred at 03:36 on 24 August 2016, when an earthquake with a magnitude recorded between 6.0 and 6.2 struck with an epicentre in Accumoli in the province of Rieti, northeast of Rome. Amatrice suffered the most severe impact, where between 237 and 239 people died as stone structures collapsed while residents and summer tourists slept. Another 10 people died in Accumoli, and 50 died in adjacent areas, bringing the overall regional death toll to 299, alongside hundreds of injuries and thousands left homeless. Repeated aftershocks continued across central Italy over several months, affecting 8,000 square kilometres across Lazio, Umbria, Marche, and Abruzzo, and damaging over 300,000 buildings, including the Basilica of Saint Benedict in Norcia on 30 October 2016.

Living conditions and the Red Zone

Ten years after the event, the old town centre of Amatrice remains cordoned off as a Red Zone where piles of rubble and active construction sites dominate the landscape. Official figures show that less than 40% of damaged private and public buildings across the disaster zone have been reconstructed, despite billions of euros in state assistance. Around 1,000 of Amatrice's approximately 2,100 residents continue to reside in temporary prefabricated housing units erected shortly after the collapse. Speaking to Swiss public broadcaster RSI, Vice Mayor Roberto Serafini pointed out that repairing social ties remains the hardest challenge for the local community.

An earthquake is like a tsunami: it is like a long wave. The more time passes, the more aware you become of the damage it has caused. Not only to things, but to people, to the community.

Administrative delays and project timelines

Government representatives and residents have attributed the prolonged rebuilding process to administrative bottlenecks, cumbersome bureaucracy, and early miscalculations. Special commissioner Guido Castelli, who was appointed by the government in 2023 to coordinate rebuilding efforts, declined to set a firm deadline for finishing the work during an interview with the newspaper La Repubblica.

Unfortunately, mistakes were made in the early years for which we are still paying. But we are now moving forward at a different pace.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni stated on social media that false starts and regulatory friction had delayed the initial recovery, but argued that recent policy changes have accelerated private reconstruction funding and public infrastructure projects. Former mayor Sergio Pirozzi, who stated during the initial disaster that Amatrice no longer existed, remains a prominent voice as local residents continue to wait for a return to normal community life.