Some worried that it might take decades to bounce back from the weight of Wednesday’s temblor.

by Stefano Pitrelli and Anthony Faiola, The Washington Post

ACCUMOLI, Italy –

In this 12th-century town, as many as 70 percent of the homes were vacant in the off-season. There were fewer people on the streets. Numerous teenagers had left for good.

And that was before the earthquake.

As the search through the ­debris continued and hopes dimmed that rescuers would find more survivors, cities and towns hit hard by Wednesday’s devastating temblor in central Italy began to process the full extent of the disaster.

Churches fell. Piazzas were ruined. Neighborhoods were leveled. Early Friday, Italian authorities said the body count was at least 267 and set to grow.

But in many of those towns, already fighting a long battle against depopulation, a deeper anxiety began to spread.

Aftershocks — some strong enough to send already damaged structures tumbling down — continued to belt the region Thursday. But for many, that was not what had them spooked the most. In some cases, these were towns already on the edge — places where sons and daughters had so little economic opportunity that many simply left. In quake-battered Accumoli, for instance, youth unemployment was already 30 percent in a town where 80 percent of the population was older than 65.

In the aftermath of such destruction, some locals feared that towns like this one might take years, maybe decades, to bounce back from the weight of the 6.2-magnitude earthquake.

In the temporary tent city set up for Accumoli’s newly homeless, Lucia Di Gianvito, a 57-year-old house cleaner, said she had had no word from the elderly woman who once employed her.

“She is probably dead,” Di Gianvito said. “Everything is going to be over now. No jobs. No shops left. It’s over.”

A woman nearby chimed in, saying that surely the town would rebuild.

Di Gianvito just laughed.

Prime Minister Matteo Renzi on Thursday pledged a series of measures to aid and rebuild hard-hit towns, including tax relief and a 50 million euro ($56.4 million) package that he suggested was just a start.

“We have a moral commitment to the women and men of those communities,” Renzi said. “The reconstruction of those towns is a priority of the government and country.”

But as often happens in Italy after major quakes, the recriminations were already flying. Italy is the most earthquake-prone nation in Western Europe — as well as a nation stocked with ancient buildings and archaeological treasures whose care scholars see as paramount to preserving human history.

Yet vast numbers of older structures do not conform to anti-earthquake building codes adopted in the 1980s — and even many new buildings do not comply, experts say. Alessandro Amati, a seismologist at Italy’s National Institute for Geophysics and Volcanology, estimated that 70 to 80 percent of buildings in Italy are not earthquake-proof. In Wednesday’s quake, 293 cultural heritage assets in Italy were damaged — including several that totally collapsed.

When reinforcements are done here, they can be shoddy, and it is not unusual for criminal charges to be brought against architects and construction companies when allegedly safe buildings fail during quakes.

On Thursday, the Italian news media reported that prosecutors were investigating how and why a school restored four years ago using government anti-earthquake funds managed to collapse.

But there is also evidence that such efforts can work: After earthquakes in 1979 and 1997, buildings in the city of Norcia, near Wednesday’s epicenter, underwent substantial reinforcements. This week, those were credited with protecting the city, which sustained only limited damage.

More such reinforcements could have saved lives, many here argued. But “there are enormous deficits when it comes to seismic safety in Italy,” Amati said.

What might worry residents in towns like Accumoli more is the track record for rebuilding. In 2009, a 6.3-magnitude quake struck L’Aquila, 72 miles east of Rome, causing widespread damage that claimed more than 300 lives. Seven years later, new housing structures have gone up on the city’s edges, but the historic center remains largely a ghost town. A more complete restoration is not expected until at least 2021.

By comparison, the 1995 earthquake in Kobe, Japan, killed 4,600 city residents and led to the full or partial collapse of more than 100,000 structures. The city suffered lasting impacts, but a massive reconstruction effort led to an 80 percent economic recovery in less than five years.

On Thursday, Renzi also insisted that he was prepared to make a serious investment in fortifying buildings and taking other steps to prevent further damage from natural disasters.

“I do not want to repeat the mistakes of L’Aquila,” he said.

In Accumoli, which suffered widespread damage, the fight now is to hold on to a future. The population had already fallen from 758 in 1991 to 667 in 2015. With fewer children, a middle school has closed. Some residents say economic opportunity has been hard to find — and will be harder now.

Giuseppina Chiaro, a 51-year-old housewife, said her 24-year-old son had left the town to find work. Now she feared that
her 21-year-old daughter, who worked at a local bar, might also need to leave.

“Right now, all I can see is darkness,” she said. “We have no money, where should we stay? Who will give us the money we need to go away? And with a 60-year-old husband? I’m over 50. I’m the kind of woman who rolls up her sleeves and gets to work. But get to work on what?”

Mayor Stefano Petrucci, however, said the town had improved its economic prospects in recent years. Although 70 percent of the homes were vacant most of the year, many of them filled up in August with temporary residents and vacationers escaping big cities.

On Wednesday, the earthquake caused damage even to the town’s most prized structures. A 12th-century civil tower. A 15th-
century palazzo. But Petrucci insisted on Thursday that Italian politicians would move swiftly to rebuild here — at least they would if they wanted “to look good.”

“We’ll become an example of how to rebuild a city center,” he vowed. “We’ll come out of this with our heads held high.”

Even in their sorrow, many residents said they are ready to fight for this town’s survival. Francesco Nigro, the local pharmacist, said he has already worked out a deal to open a temporary pharmacy in a shipping container because of a sense of community that he refuses to let go of. As he spoke near the light-blue tent city for homeless residents, an elderly woman in pain came up to him and asked for an analgesic cream.

“We care about each other here and we’re not going to give that up,” he said. “It’s going to take time and patience. But this town is not going to be defeated.”

Faiola reported from London. Stephanie Kirchner in Berlin contributed to this report.