In Messina’s oldest slums, wooden parts of the original shacks built just after the 1908 quake are still visible.Credit...Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times As soon as Mr. Scurria got out of ...

The clouds had broken with more rain than her neighborhood — a slum on the southern outskirts ... That morning, she'd set up a blockade using a big wooden board, but it hadn't kept the water ...