L’AQUILA, Italy — Some semblance of routine was settling in at the tent camps sprawled across Italy’s central earthquake-stricken region Saturday, and most of it involved lines: waiting for breakfast, waiting for information, waiting for a shower — a cold one.
Residents were slowly accepting that this could be their life for the next few months until temporary housing can be built. Some can’t even think about returning to their homes, still spooked by the quake that shook them from their sleep Monday morning and killed at least 293 people.
On the eve of Easter, Roman Catholic faithful confessed their sins in a blowup tent fitted with an altar and a crucifix to prepare for Mass the next day. In other tents, people gathered around flat-screen TVs to watch a soccer game or a news program reporting the death toll had risen.
“This would have seemed impossible before, but it’s the reality. Life has to go on,” said Giovanni Fasano, 52, a private security guard who shares a blue tent with his wife and four relatives, their dog tied up outside.
The occupants are some of the 40,000 people whose homes were destroyed, badly damaged or too risky to reoccupy without a thorough examination by engineers.
His wife, Monia Tobia, says life in the tent camp isn’t easy. There are showers, but no hot water or hair dryers.
Authorities have said it could be weeks, if not months, before it is known which of the houses left standing are safe enough to be repaired and which will have to be demolished.
Engineers and geologists have said well-constructed buildings meeting seismic-safety standards should not have collapsed as they did, raising fears that shoddy construction factored significantly in the 6.3-magnitude temblor’s deadliness and destruction.
L’Aquila prosecutor Alfredo Rossini has opened an investigation into the allegations of poor construction.
He said the probe would investigate the alleged use of sea sand mixed in with cement.
“Sea sand corrodes cement, which then doesn’t hold up at all,” Rossini said.
