Norcia finds its basilica again after seven years. “We rebuilt it stone by stone”

NORCIA – Ninety butchers, and sixty officers on the front lines, will sit on chairs given by the municipality this morning to follow the thanks of His Excellency. Renato Bogardo, the archbishop of Spoleto and Norcia, the beloved basilica of San Benedetto appears in an ancient, renovated space. Concrete floor, exposed wooden vault, false roof waiting to be restored. Here are the faithful, the devotees and the altar as the commissioner for reconstruction Guido Castelli We meet each other for the first time after seven years – October 30, 2016, the shock that opened the church, except for the facade and the spire, was very powerful in that season – it was not original, often destroyed or anticipated by the reconstruction project. It will be a floor that has been laboriously brought from the crypt to the ground floor.

Solid bricks and tie rods for 3.4 million euros

For the first time, mass is celebrated in the renewed symbolic church. After 21 months, the first part of the architecture will return, glued to a new standard plan: solid bricks together with the old stone, exposed and tie wires into the walls. 3.409 million for the first phase of reconstruction with funding from the European Community and the Extraordinary Commission.

On 25 February 2022 Mass is celebrated at the suspended construction site on this Monday of Mercy, six days in the first week thanks to the Gopher of Altamura. Sergio Mattarella He came to visit the city of monks. Workers and engineers from the Bari province completed a batch 130 days early and received a production bonus.

“For us this celebration will be like the first bell of the Civic Tower for the people of Amatrice, we will cry.” Looking at the bell tower he says, Giuliano BoccaneraFrom Mayor of Norcia Nicola AlemannoHe had to be suspended for abuse of office after the earthquake.

All the work is going on in the holy city

The monastery’s guest house in Monte opened on Saturday. Two and a half meters under the town hall and its bell tower were dug to isolate them from the next earthquake. Finally, 3.507 million will be spent on this work. The square-plan Castellina, formerly the Civic and Diocesan Museum, still stands in the main square, awaiting the start of its one-million-euro construction site: seismic adaptation and plant engineering. Thus the Municipal Theater, work in progress (1.657 million, here). And the two entrances to the city, Romana and Ascolana: work in progress. After seven years. There is public and private money for reconstruction, but the timelines for these reconstructions are increasingly delayed.

“For the first three years nothing was done, it’s true”, “Acting”, explains the former deputy mayor of Fratelli d’Italia. “With the Commissioner Giovanni Legnini Procedures were quickened, laws dried up, but within two years came the epidemic. The 110 percent law has moved construction companies out of the ditch in central Italy. And in Norcia, a stratified city, every stone brought to light by the excavations was analyzed by the curator.”

Superintendent: “Too many commissioners”

It is true that the earthquake of summer-autumn 2016 was very large, expanding with each new shock. Eight out of ten buildings were damaged in Norcia: 1,200 construction sites were started for this reason, and only 40 percent have been completed to date. The town of San Benedetto was spared – no deaths or injuries seven years ago – because it had been rebuilt before (the 1979 earthquake) and with better materials than Amatrice, but reconstruction has been painful here too. “We’re late”, now it is Paolo AinelliSpecial curator of the affected areas and responsible for the reconstruction of the basilica, “the change of five commissioners in seven years was a problem”.

The civic tower of Amatrice was only opened today, which broadens our view, and during the week the work is assigned to restore the entire village of Castelluccio di Norcia. There are six points where people are still traveling on a single lane after 84 months on major earthquake-hit Salaria and Tre Valli Umbrian state roads. And, as Commissioner Castelli revealed, 30,000 people across the crater are still homeless.