According to the study, VR technology can be used to recreate towns destroyed by disasters, helping communities "travel back in time" to revisit homes and memories they thought they had lost. The research team worked with Italian communities affected by the 2016 earthquake, using VR to reconstruct the towns of Accumoli and Amatrice. The REPLACE project showed that VR environments are not only valuable for documenting buildings but also serve as spaces for mourning, healing, and memory preservation. Dr Matteo Baraldo, part of the Essex team, said: "In their VR towns, they could process their grief and reconnect with lost places, reinforcing their emotional attachment to their pre-disaster homes." The research, published in the Journal of International Heritage Studies, is informing new VR projects, including a reconstruction of L’Aquila in Abruzzo, which was destroyed by an earthquake in 2009.