Amatrice (Rieti), August 24, 2026 – Ten years after the earthquake that at 3:36 AM on August 24, 2016 erased villages, stories, and nearly three hundred lives, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni arrives in Amatrice. Not only to commemorate those who are no longer here, but also to respond to the call for presence and listening coming from the crater area. A request that became symbolic in the words written in a letter to the president by Patrizia Marano, who lost her entire family under the rubble: “I would like her to come to the earthquake zones not only to commemorate, but to meet those who remained.”
Mattarella: “Earthquake a dramatic chapter, reconstruction must be completed quickly”
On the day of the celebrations for the tenth anniversary of the earthquake in Central Italy, the words of the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella arrived: “On the night of August 24 ten years ago, the violent earthquake with its epicenter between Accumoli and Arquata del Tronto, in the heart of the central Apennines, struck numerous municipalities across Lazio, Marche, Umbria, and Abruzzo, followed by further seismic sequences until early 2017. With its toll of 299 dead, 365 injured, and more than 40,000 displaced, that earthquake – of whose devastation Amatrice became a symbol – represents a dramatic chapter in the history of the Republic and serves as a constant warning about the ongoing need to strengthen the mechanisms of prevention and intervention to be implemented when seismic events occur in our Territory.”
“Recovery is a process, not without complexity, that requires commitment to be completed as soon as possible and is a call to collective responsibility to restore the normality that was broken in the areas affected by this tragedy,” Mattarella further emphasizes.
Mattarella praises rescuers and “their precious and generous work”
“Volunteers who came from all over Italy, their precious and generous work, together with the promptness of the first aid authorities’ interventions, were a vehicle of aid and assistance, also bringing a signal of hope and restart with which a reconstruction process began – recalls Mattarella again –. Just as in the case of other natural disasters that have occurred in our Territory, the spirit of solidarity that unites the Italian people proved – adds the Head of State – an effective tool of resilience and containment in the face of calamities of such wide scale and violence.” “On this day of remembrance, I join the pain of those who have lost family members and express – concludes Mattarella – my closeness to the injured and to those who suddenly found themselves in great difficulty.”
The Mass of Cardinal Matteo Zuppi
Today the Prime Minister will be in the place that more than any other represents the tragedy of Central Italy: at 4:30 PM the laying of a laurel wreath in front of the monument dedicated to the victims, then at 5 PM the Mass celebrated by Cardinal Matteo Zuppi at the Amatrice sports field. In the morning, Zuppi himself will also officiate the service in the Sae area of Pescara del Tronto, another epicenter of the devastation. A blessing also came yesterday from Pope Leo XIV during the Angelus: “I pray for the deceased and their families and the communities involved. May faith and solidarity continue to support the reconstruction work.” Words that intertwine with today’s reality: 3,651 days later, over 2,000 families still live in the Sae houses, awaiting a definitive return to normality.
Castelli: “Remembering the victims remains the primary duty of institutions”
“Remembering the victims remains the primary duty of institutions,” declared the reconstruction commissioner Guido Castelli, who emphasizes how the Prime Minister’s presence represents “the tangible sign of a State that chooses to stand by the communities.” Castelli, former mayor of Ascoli Piceno at the time of the earthquake, recalls that reconstruction has gained momentum in recent years, but that “the time lost” in the first five years remains evident especially in the historic centers of Amatrice, Accumoli, and Arquata, still marked by shoring and rubble.
The Prime Minister: “Now forward with determination and tenacity”
Meloni’s visit comes two years after the meeting at Palazzo Chigi with the mayor of Amatrice Giorgio Cortellesi. And it comes as the Prime Minister reiterates, in the preface to the volume ‘The Stones of Rebirth’ presented at the Rimini Meeting, the will to complete the path: “Much has been done, but just as much remains to be done. And we intend to do it with determination and tenacity, to respond to that ‘demand for the future’ that comes from those born and raised in those places. Because staying and returning are not just a personal matter, they are not acts of immobility or nostalgia, they are a choice, a vision, an act of care, a will to build. Staying in the territories does not mean falling behind, but taking responsibility to take them by the hand and move them forward.”
Ten years later, the wounds are still visible: emptied villages, communities that resist, families who never returned. And a request that over the years has grown stronger, the same one Patrizia Marano entrusted to her letter addressed to the Prime Minister: “Our land asks for only one thing: not to be forgotten.”
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