L’AQUILA, Italy — As three big earthquakes rattled central Italy last month after a major quake there this summer, thousands more Italians were left homeless, and Prime Minister Matteo Renzi pledged anew on Wednesday that every stricken town would return to what it had been.

“We will rebuild everything,” the prime minister wrote on his website, adding that a government decree would be issued on Friday to streamline the bureaucracy surrounding reconstruction. “We have the money, the will, too.”

Although the words were welcome, they were unlikely to inspire complete confidence among residents of Norcia and the other towns hit by the most recent quakes. The victims need look no farther than L’Aquila, about 60 miles south, for a sobering reminder of unfulfilled promises and of the challenges ahead.

Here, on April 6, 2009, an earthquake killed 309 people. Since then, reconstruction of this regional capital of 72,000 still hobbles on. “Not like L’Aquila” has become a common refrain in these earthquake-ridden days.