Deadly earthquakes have cost Italy over €23bn in recovery costs
Central Italy has been hit by three devastating earthquakes over the last nine months.
The cost of repairing the damages caused by the earthquakes that have affected Italy over the last six months amounts to over €23bn (£19.5bn, $24.3bn), the country's Civil Protection Agency (CPA) said.
According to the report, which was published on Wednesday, 15 February, the damage inflicted onto public buildings will cost the country €1.1bn, while the damage to homes and other privately owned buildings adds up to €12.9bn.
In January, a wave of strong earthquakes shook central Italy and caused 34 deaths, and an avalanche was triggered that buried a three-storey Italian luxury spa hotel under ice and snow in the town of Farindola on the Gran Sasso mountain in the central Abruzzo region.
The epicentre was near L'Aquila, the town in the Apennine mountains that was largely destroyed by a powerful quake in 2009, but the tremors were felt as far as Rome, where line A and B of the metro were evacuated and closed down, while the motorway A24 connecting Rome, L'Aquila and Teramo was also shut down.
In August of last year, a 6.0-magnitude quake destroyed the town of Amatrice, killing almost 300 people, while in late October, another devastating tremor hit the town of Norcia, in the Umbria region in central Italy.
A number of aftershocks have rocked the Umbria, Marche and Abruzzo regions more or less constantly ever since, leaving thousands of people homeless for weeks, and in some instances, months in a row.
Along with their citizens, the mayors of the affected towns have complained of feeling "abandoned" by the Italian government and, in January, residents took to the streets in Rome to protest against what they perceive to be excessively slow bureaucracy.
The CPA, which estimated the damages caused by the Amatrice earthquake amounted to around €7bn, will submit its report to the European Union authorities, as Italy seeks to tap into the EU Solidarity Fund to help pay for recovery efforts.
According to consumer organization Coldiretti, a number of hotels have been left unusable after the quakes, while approximately 10,000 animals were affected by the tremors, further compounding an already difficult financial situation for the local regions.
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