[URBAN NOTE] "Italians worry quake-struck town will be abandoned, lost forever"

[rfmcdonald]

CBC News' reports about the devastation of the Italian hill town of San Giovanni di Accumoli, recently ravaged by an earthquake, and how its inhabitants fear the community will end up disappearing unless it is repaired quickly.

Cold mountain spring water continues to pour out of old taps above a trough on the edge of the piazza in the small hamlet of San Giovanni di Accumoli in the Italian hills hit by last week's deadly earthquake.

Butterflies flit and bees hover next to deep purple flowers in gardens carefully laid out beside old houses overlooking a lush, green valley. But everything else in this small hamlet seems still, frozen in time.

Then you notice that the church on the other side of the piazza is missing one of its walls, now a pile of rubble on the ground, as if a giant claw had come in and swiped it away, exposing its innards: a dust-covered pulpit, a crucifix askew.

The seeming peacefulness of the place is in stark contrast to the violent heaving beneath the earth that brought it and so many other buildings down across the quake zone, entombing hundreds.

Across from the church another building is missing a hunk of wall, exposing the bedroom Adriano Piscatelli and his wife were sleeping in when the earthquake struck at 3:36 a.m. local time last Wednesday, killing at least 290 people.

"There was a devastatingly loud noise and then debris started falling on us from all over," he said. "We waited for it to finish and then we rushed out of the house and started calling all of the neighbours to see who was there.

"There was one who didn't answer."