Ten Years On, Amatrice's Reconstruction Still Lags

The central Italian town of Amatrice gathered on Monday to mark the tenth anniversary of the earthquake that killed hundreds and destroyed much of the historic centre, but the memorial was shadowed by a stark accounting of what remains undone. According to the Guardian, as of April two-thirds of planned public projects in the town had yet to begin, a figure that rises to seven in ten in the hardest-hit areas.

The slow pace of rebuilding in Amatrice has become a recurring theme in foreign coverage of Italian disaster management, and it carries a particular resonance for the South. Puglia, like much of the Mezzogiorno, sits on seismic and infrastructural fault lines of its own, and regional officials have long pointed to central Italy's halting recovery as a cautionary tale in debates over how public money is spent after emergencies.

The Guardian's report notes the anniversary mass was held as residents continue to live in temporary housing a decade on. The gap between official pledges and on-the-ground reality, the paper suggests, has eroded public trust in the state's capacity to rebuild.

The 2016 earthquake struck in the early hours of 24 August, levelling Amatrice, Accumoli and other towns across the Apennines. The death toll exceeded 290, and the disaster became a symbol of Italy's vulnerability to seismic shocks and of the administrative paralysis that often follows them.

For Puglia, the lessons are twofold. The region's own building stock is ageing, and while its seismic risk is lower than the central Apennines, the exposure of its coastal towns to climate-driven flooding has prompted similar questions about preparedness. More pointedly, the South's long experience of delayed public works — from the unfinished sections of the Salerno-Reggio Calabria motorway to stalled port upgrades — has made the Amatrice story a familiar one to local administrators.

The Guardian's reporting this week highlights that some private reconstruction has moved faster, but the public realm — schools, town halls, roads — remains largely in limbo. That distinction matters for Puglia's planners, who have argued that infrastructure, not just housing, must be the priority in any future emergency response.

As the anniversary passes, the foreign press's attention has turned to what the slow recovery says about Italian governance more broadly. The Guardian's correspondent writes that the delays stem from a mix of bureaucratic complexity, funding disputes and, in some cases, a lack of political will — a diagnosis that resonates well beyond the borders of Lazio and Umbria.

For the South, the Amatrice example is often invoked in discussions about the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, the EU-funded programme meant to modernise Italy. If public projects cannot be delivered in a decade in a single town, regional observers ask, what hope is there for the larger transformations promised across the Mezzogiorno?