Civil authorities already wrestling with questions over materials used to rebuild homes as 15,000 people remain displaced

The earth has not yet finished shaking, but 24 hours after a 6.6-magnitude earthquake reduced historic towns and villages in the Apennine mountains to rubble, the focus of residents and political leaders has already turned to the huge rebuilding task ahead.

Italy earthquake: historic structures levelled in biggest quake since 1980 Read more

Authorities are dealing with both the immediate crisis of rehoming the 15,000 people displaced by the series of earthquakes, and longer-term questions about the kinds of homes suitable for an area at risk of future tremors. Not least of these questions is who will pay for them.

“Give us back our tents” has become the unofficial mantra of some residents in the town of Norcia. They are refusing to leave their damaged homes, despite falling temperatures.

“They’re not just tents,” one resident, Adolfo, told La Repubblica. “They’re comfortable and heated. [They] allow us to remain here to be able to confront the difficulties of this hour.”

Italy’s civil protection agency said it was moving about 500 people into hotels near Lake Trasimeno in Umbria and more than 4,000 into hotels on the Adriatic coast; an additional 3,000 are staying in reception centres in Umbria and Marche.

In Rome – where a major bridge, Ponte Mazzini near Trastevere, was closed to cars and pedestrians on Monday after the discovery of a crack caused by the earthquake – the prime minister, Matteo Renzi, dismissed the idea that residents could stay in tents given the approaching winter.

“There are hotels for everyone,” he wrote in his weekly newsletter. “But many of our compatriots do not want to leave their areas, not even for a few weeks. So we’ll have to manage this initial emergency phase in the best way possible.”

Renzi is due to convene a cabinet meeting on Monday evening to discuss rebuilding efforts.

For people in the worst-affected areas of Umbria, Marche, and parts of rural Lazio – where the town of Amatrice was levelled by an earthquake in August – Monday was the beginning of what is likely to be a long and contentious struggle to rebuild towns and villages without damaging their cultural heritage.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A still image from a video released by the Italian fire department shows the devastated Castelluccio di Norcia in Umbria. Photograph: EPA

The rural regions are famous not only for their food but for the ancient stone used to build walls and homes; the material has not proved to be as resilient as wood or other materials used in other earthquake-prone areas.

For the first step of the rebuilding, the Italian civil protection agency will decide whether the homes left standing are safe enough to be re-inhabited.

Cecilia Anesi, an investigative journalist who lives in Umbria and witnessed the devastating quake of 1997, said the next big question would be whether the government would seek to rebuild homes in wood and concrete, or whether it would maintain the region’s style and heritage.

San Benedetto basilica in Norcia is destroyed by earthquake Read more

“The consequence of rebuilding everything in a modern way, using wood or concrete, means we won’t have historical centres any more, which are the soul of Umbria and Marche. It’s a very confusing moment,” she said.

“The government could rebuild houses in the ancient style by securing them with concrete, but it is very costly. The decision seems to be between quickly creating new homes, or saving heritage; and with heritage, cultural identity.”

Anesi said historic churches needed to be protected and reinforced, because they were were often the first structures to fail in earthquakes.

Paolo Bazzurro, professor of hazard and risk assessment at the University Institute for Superior Studies (IUSS) in Pavia, said he did not believe residents would consider rebuilding homes in wood to be an acceptable solution, even though they would be safer.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Coffins have been exposed in a cemetery in the village of Campi, near Norcia. Photograph: Remo Casilli/Reuters

“We are talking about people who have been living in small villages their entire life, so they want something that looks like the village they had. Rebuilding something that can be accepted is a big social sciences problem,” Bazzurro said.

Despite promises by Renzi on Sunday of a total rebuilding programme, many residents may look to the experience of towns such as L’Aquila, which was devastated by an earthquake in 2009, and conclude that vast areas of the region may never be rebuilt.

Seven years after the deadly quake, much of L’Aquila looks like a construction site; deserted streets are still cordoned off to pedestrians.

Mariagrazia Benvenuti, who has a home in the village of Sellano, knows from first-hand experience how long it can take to rebuild in the area. She is still waiting for her home to be reconstructed, 19 years after the area sustained major earthquake.

She blames incompetence and official inaction. “There are buildings that have been crumbling for years, for which the municipality is uninterested despite the demands of citizens,” she said.