The processing of files is speeding up in La Laigne, the village in Charente-Maritime most affected by the earthquake of June 16, 2023, where dozens of families are still waiting to return to their homes, the authorities said on Saturday.
“Today, there is still a lot to do but a lot of work has been done,” said the prefect of Charente-Maritime, Brice Blondel. “When we brought together the insurers on April 24, only 20% of the most complicated files, the 160 houses classified red or black and therefore uninhabitable, were closed. Today, we are at 60%.”
With the Department, the community of communes and the mayors, “we are putting pressure on things to move forward”, said the State representative, accompanied by many local elected officials in the village of 474 inhabitants where heavy wooden props still support the facades and gables and tires prevent the wind from tearing the tarpaulins off the roofs.
Among them, the mayor of Niort, Jérôme Baloge, came to bring a check for 3.850 million euros from the Société mutuelle d’assurance des collectivités locales (SMACL) which he chairs to rebuild public buildings in the village.
2 million euros committed
Seventeen of the 30 mobile homes deployed in La Laigne are still occupied and 21 families are waiting. They will benefit when work begins on their homes and others return to their homes, according to state services.
“In the long term, we will keep this equipment free as the Prime Minister promised,” Gabriel Attal assured the prefect during a visit at the end of February.
The State has set aside 900,000 euros for free rehousing in mobile homes in addition to insurance via the Emergency Rehousing Assistance Fund (FARU). In total, it has committed more than two million euros to help disaster victims.
The “real difficulty”, according to local elected officials, was to send out “available and qualified” insurance experts. “There were unusual situations: car experts who came to diagnose buildings, experts who did not know whether to treat the ceiling or the walls first, etc.”, explained the prefect.
According to France Assureurs, in the entire affected area on the border of Charente-Maritime and Deux-Sèvres, the earthquake caused nearly 17,000 claims for total compensation of 184 million euros.
