“It’s hard… My daughter took her first steps here, it was a life project,” confides Amélie Pidoux as she faces her home gutted by an excavator.
The first demolitions have just started this Tuesday March 26 in La Laigne (Charente-Maritime), struck by an earthquake on June 16, 2023.
In this town of 500 inhabitants, more than a hundred properties were classified “black” or “red” following the earthquake.
Since then, some owners have chosen to renovate them.
Others preferred to shave everything, like Amélie Pidoux and Thibault, her husband.
“The repairs were twice as high as the estimate for the house,” summarizes this forty-year-old who also owns the neighboring house, which was completely renovated and rented out a few months before… the earthquake.
Cracked on all sides, this building and the main house will disappear under the pounding of construction equipment.
“The walls will be made of concrete blocks”
Instead, this mother and her husband will only rebuild one and the same house – the sums paid by the insurance companies do not cover their entire loss.
“In total, we had 400 m2 of building space.
We will rebuild 180 m2.
And we will have to buy our furniture,” explains Amélie Pidoux who was unable to move all her belongings following the earthquake.
“The demolition workers were able to recover some books and comics belonging to my daughter.
We hadn't been in his room since the earthquake.
We had to dress her from A to Z,” explains her mother.
For a time, the couple and their two children thought about leaving La Laigne.
“We visited other houses elsewhere but our hearts weren’t in it.
My son and my daughter have their friends here, we get along well with the neighbors,” says Amélie Pidoux.
So this family chose to rebuild in this village that they love so much.
“The walls will be made of concrete blocks, with seismic standards… We had to mourn the loss of rubble walls,” breathes Amélie Pidoux, attached to the charms of the old.
Read alsoAfter the La Laigne earthquake, nearly 600 aftershocks recorded in 4 months
Her goal now: “Move into a new house in 2025,” smiles this professional real estate agent.
This new project, entirely entrusted to a professional “to be more peaceful”, should begin “mid-April” when all the rubble will have been removed.
“It’s long but we have passed the most difficult part,” breathes Amélie Pidoux.