A strong earthquake struck a mountainous stretch of central Italy on 24 August, killing at least 250 people.
The towns at the epicenter of the quake – Amatrice, Accumoli and Arquata del Tronto – are scenes of devastation.
Amatrice, a town of about 2,000 people in the north of Italy’s Lazio region, is in ruins.
But amid the rubble, the town’s clock tower stood tall, with the clock stopped at the time the quake struck.
Art experts fear numerous historic Italian buildings and their contents were damaged in Wednesday’s earthquake, across a region where almost every hilltop town and village has beautiful churches and monuments.
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