On June 16, 2023 at 6:38 p.m., the earth shook in Charente-Maritime, in Deux-Sèvres and beyond, shaking houses and upending the lives of residents.
On June 19, 2023, three days after the earthquake, while two ministers were walking the streets to see the damage, a resident stormed out of her damaged house. She has just found a broken clock, which stopped at 6:38 p.m., the time of the earthquake.
© (Photo archives NR, Hélène Echasseriau)
No serious injuries, but extensive material damage. Mayors are still fighting so that their constituents have a chance of being compensated. Even more serious, 160 families were chased from their endangered homes in Charente-Maritime. In La Laigne, the small town most affected, two ministers came to assure the victims of their support with promises.
A frozen ghost village
A year later, in La Laigne, nothing seems to have changed with the appearance of a ghost village in certain streets: the same collapsed walls, abandoned cracked houses, covered roofs, barriers and bye-laws.
The only visible development, these large props across the alleys to hold up houses, the church or the deserted school. We can see the silhouettes of cats left to live there between rubble and abandoned fallow gardens. The impression that time has stopped, apart from a few gaping holes in place of the handful of razed houses.
500 m away, in La Grève-sur-Mignon, Matthieu Priez was not spared. “I bought this house in 2022 with a 25-year loan, doing a lot of work with my son in it”. From July 2023, he participated in the creation of a collective of disaster victims which recently obtained support for the rehousing of 160 families with uninhabitable houses who had to pay rent in addition to their credit to be repaid.
In his barn, a stone wall collapsed. Inside his house, the signs of destruction multiply. “The two walls have moved apart, the frame has moved, I have infiltrations everywhere”. Prohibition to live there. In a hurry, the man found a mobile home where he and his son could take refuge. A year later, he still lives there… “The closed files concern the least impacted houses. »
“In one hour, we went from €150,000 to €23,000 worth of work”
His case illustrates the random, even fanciful, aspect of damage estimates. “An expert who came in July estimated the work at €150,000, relates Matthieu Pray. He came back with a “partner company”. In one hour, we went from €150,000 to €23,000 of work and “no need for a design office”.
In August, second expert, “who recommends the arrival of a design office! » In December, here is the design office. “He didn’t tour the house and just did a visual study without looking at the walls. » And here it is again “a partner company” : “She proposed to us a single Saint Andrew’s cross in structural work, a remodeling of the roof and adjustments to the carpentry… We must not exaggerate. How can we make a visual observation without seeing? To read a book, you have to open it. »
A design office was due to return on June 14. “We’re starting from scratch… One year is a very long time, it’s unacceptable. And afterward, we will have to wait for the report, then for a company to come back and quantify the prescribed work… And how can we know if the repairs will be durable? » For his part, he brought in a project manager. “He would demolish everything…”
Matthieu Pray, in front of his house which has become uninhabitable because the structure was affected by the earthquake.
© (Photo NR)
Like the other evicted families, he is worried: “We are all very scared. We don’t know what we’re going to be offered. Experts and insurers have our future in their hands in terms of assets and finances. » The present too, which requires morale of steel to survive this endless forced exile. “My son often asks me: When are we going to come back, dad? ». The dad doesn’t know. He, too, only aspires to “return to a normal, fulfilling life, as before”.
