Not one person in the town of Amatrice is unaffected by what has happened here; they have all lost something.

A relative or a friend. A home or a business. Their possessions or their pet.

It is the same in the smaller towns, villages and hamlets dotted across these stunning Umbrian hills where almost 300 people died following Wednesday's earthquake.

The village of Sommati is picture-perfect Italy. High up above Amatrice, it is the place you would choose for the cover of a travel brochure and it is the place the Henniker-Gotley family chose for their holiday home.

Villa Olivia used to belong to Giorgio Feliziani and his family. A few years ago they sold it to the Henniker-Gotleys who became their neighbours and friends.


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In the darkness of the early hours of Wednesday morning, Giorgio found himself pulling his friends out of the rubble of his old home.

"I saw a cloud of dust and after a while we realised that our neighbours' house had broken in half," he told me.

"The two children were in an exposed top floor doorway asking for help. We rescued them and tried to dig with our hands and bits of wood."

Giorgio has a look about him that is familiar around here at the moment. It is a mixture of shell shock and grief.

All over the town you see individuals and couples arm in arm walking in an aimless daze, trying to absorb their loss.

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And you see exhausted dusty rescue workers heading out of the disaster zone. They pass fresh and clean rescuers who have just arrived in the area. There are hundreds of people here helping from countries all over the world: the UK, France, Germany, China.

A key challenge is securing the many bridges that string these hillside communities together. Most do not look damaged but they are not safe. It has made it hard to reach some villages, hampering the rescue and recovery operation.

The aftershocks are frequent and frightening. Some are powerful too. The feel of an earthquake is an uneasy sensation. As well as the movement beneath your feet, there is a rumble as everything around you moves.

Every time there is a tremor, the rescue and recovery teams stop and pull back. The buildings they are working in are extremely unsafe.

Image: Volunteers move rubble and debris during rescue operations in Amatrice

As one strong tremor came, I was talking to a man named Stefano. The earth moved and his elderly relative screamed.

Her face perfectly conveyed the emotions earthquakes cause: fear but also a sense of bewilderment. She does not know how she will ever feel safe here again.

The tremor we had just felt measured just over four on the Richter scale. It lasted no more than five seconds. Stefano saw the concern on my face.

"You don't have earthquakes where you're from, do you?" he said in broken English.

"That just now was nothing. Wednesday morning, much stronger shake. Nearly two minutes: shake, shake. Tremor. Terror."

Image: This couple were reunited with their cat after returning to their ruined home

Smiles are rare around here at the moment but on one back street in Sommati we found two. A couple were calling to an upstairs room of their destroyed house. It was the first time they had returned to the place since the quake and they were looking for their cat.

A fireman offered to go inside the building to see if he could find it. Their calls were answered and minutes later it was brought out in distress.

It was the smallest of mercies for a couple who lost their home and friends.