On 24 August 2016, at 3:36 am, an earthquake measuring 6.0 on the Richter magnitude scale rocked central Italy, destroying the towns of Accumoli, Amatrice, Arquata del Tronto and Pescara del Tronto. At 4:33 am another tremor, of magnitude 5.4, brought destruction to Norcia. Since that moment, over 70,000 tremors have been recorded in central Italy, with seismic activity peaking at 7:40 am of 30 October, in the provinces of Macerata, Perugia and Ascoli Piceno. With a magnitude of 6.5, it was the most powerful earthquake that ever struck Italy, after the one that destroyed the Irpinia area back in 1980, which measured 6.8 on the moment magnitude scale. On 18 January, another quake rocked the Abruzzi region, in the area of Campotosto-Montereale.

The aftermath of this seismic sequence was absolutely terrible, in terms of death toll, disrupted economy, devastated cultural heritage. The Civil Defence estimated that material damage totalled about 23,530,000 Euros, which adds on to the significant damage caused by the previous two earthquakes, which struck L'Aquila in 2009 and the Po Valley in 2012.

This study analyses the financial resources fielded to face the natural disasters of the past eight years and zeroes in, for the last quake, on the regulatory response too: three decree-laws, and later amendments which followed 35 decrees by the Special Commissioner and 26 decrees of the Civil Defence.