By Crispian Balmer
AMATRICE, Italy, Aug 20 (Reuters) - In the early hours of August 24, 2016, Giorgio Cortellesi stumbled through the dust and darkness of Amatrice, fearing his children were dead, buried beneath tons of rubble.
His two young sons had been staying overnight with their grandparents when an earthquake levelled much of the central Italian hilltown.
Rushing over from a nearby hamlet, Cortellesi found the streets in ruins, muffled cries rising from collapsed homes. Then he caught the sound
of one of his sons calling for help.
"I didn't think I would find them alive, but when I heard his voice, it was as if I started breathing again," said Cortellesi.
He promised himself that if his boys survived he would help rebuild Amatrice, which bore the brunt of the calamity, with 237 people dying in the town out of a total death toll of 303.
Elected town mayor in 2021, Cortellesi is trying to make good on his pledge, but it isn't easy.
LIFE ON HOLD
The 6.2-magnitude earthquake and aftershocks destroyed much of Amatrice's historic centre and many outlying areas, leaving several thousand people homeless.
The state has promised to pay for the vast bulk of the reconstruction and has so far approved private and public sector projects worth €22.7 billion ($26.3 billion) across the disaster zone. Around €10 billion has been paid out to date.
In Amatrice, 38% of the damaged properties have been restored, with the pace of building picking up markedly over the past 12 months. Cranes dot the town and clusters of pristine new homes have sprouted amidst the desolation.
Even so, only a small proportion of the structures flattened in 2016 have been rebuilt. Much of the historic centre remains behind barriers, where two lone towers that survived the earthquake gaze over the blasted wasteland.
Around 1,000 people, roughly 60% of the population, still live in small, prefabricated shelters, while each year a few families drift away, seeking a brighter future elsewhere.
"After 10 years many people have lost faith," said Cortellesi. "We need to keep on encouraging them, but we can't do more than we are already doing."
LONG ROAD BACK
As with other major Italian earthquakes, such as L'Aquila in 2009, Amatrice's reconstruction got bogged down in bureaucracy, legal disputes and shifting priorities.
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted rebuilding efforts, while Italy's generous "Superbonus" renovation scheme, intended to revive the virus-hit economy, pushed up the cost of building materials and siphoned off labour to more lucrative projects across Italy.
"The Superbonus led to an almost total stop that lasted two years. It was a disaster," said Cortellesi.
Rebuilding densely packed medieval neighbourhoods was complicated by multiple owners, inheritance disputes and unresolved property claims that made every planning application a legal minefield.
Officials say fears of mafia interference in the adjudication of multi-million-euro contracts added further layers of scrutiny that snarled some projects for years.
Yet for some survivors, the slow pace of reconstruction has been only one part of a much deeper struggle to remain.
Daniele Bonanni lost his mother, sister and nephew in the earthquake, leaving just him, his niece and her baby daughter alive. A sought-after chef, Bonanni could easily have moved on. Instead he stayed put.
"It seemed wrong to abandon the place where I grew up and where my family built a life," he said. "Perhaps it was a mistake. Even today I cannot say for certain."
For years, descendants of Amatrice families returned each August to homes inherited from parents and grandparents, but many of those properties were lost.
"People once came for the summer, now they come for lunch," said Bonanni, who runs a chic restaurant in a food village established for chefs who had lost their businesses.
"If you create a generational break of 10 or 15 years, the bond dies," he said.
FINANCIAL TRAP
Few embody the frustrations of reconstruction more than brother and sister Alfredo and Elisabetta Perilli.
They lost many relatives and their respective homes in the centre of Amatrice. Alfredo still has to pay the mortgage on his old house, trapping him financially.
"The building no longer exists, but the bank wants its money every month," he said.
The Perillis also lost their family-run restaurant and hotel, with the land it once occupied now serving as a temporary access route for the reconstruction of a hospital. Building work was scheduled to finish in 2022.
Until they get their site back, they cannot submit reconstruction plans for approval. "If they go on much longer I won't have the strength to start rebuilding," said Elisabetta.
Such delays have left Cortellesi wondering whether some of the choices made after the earthquake were the right ones, including the core decision to recreate much of the town on its original site and largely in its former image.
"What we will have is a facsimile," he said, acknowledging that much of the medieval masonry had gone.
"Personally, I would have redesigned the town in a modern way. Once everything had been wiped away, I think something new could have been created, but it is too late to turn back."
(Editing by Janet Lawrence)
