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Italy, a Land of Earthquakes, Works to Protect the Priceless

“Italy’s patrimony has been lost because we used to intervene after the fact and not before,” said Roberto Cecchi, general director of the Architectural Heritage and Landscape Department, which is responsible for the safekeeping of Italy’s monuments.

Under the new guidelines unveiled this summer, officials at the local and national levels are to evaluate the seismic risk to individual structures in their jurisdictions and take steps to reduce the vulnerability. These steps could include using steel chains to join the walls together, or employing carbon fiber strips in the walls and the vaulting as a sort of flexible bandage.

“The idea is to see a structure as a sort of box that is more resistant if the vertical and the horizontal elements work together,” said Laura Moro, an architect at the Culture Ministry. “In a seismic area sooner or later something will happen. The problem is that for years this issue was totally ignored.”
Read entire article at NYT