Portion of the medieval walls of Volterra collapses – A sudden roar and then a cloud of dust and in an instant about twenty meters of the medieval walls of Volterra (Pisa) crumbled this morning, falling into the street below and slightly injuring a woman: she would have been bruised from one of the stones rolled down from the spur of the Etruscan hill ending up on a provincial road. Fortunately, the toll of those involved was not more serious.
The collapse, ten years after a similar one occurred about 500 meters away from today’s one, occurred around midday and subsequently there were others of smaller dimensions, before the firefighters completed the safety of the front landslide. Initially three families were evacuated from their homes as a precaution, but after a few hours two families were able to return home, the third will be hosted in another structure found by the Municipality.
“But the house of these people – assures the mayor, Giacomo Santi – is not damaged, it is just very close to the area affected by the collapse and it is therefore a precautionary measure to have evacuated the property”. Today’s collapse shocked the people of Volterra, a community that had already felt similar anguish: on 31 January 2014, due to an exceptional wave of bad weather, with heavy rain, a section of around 30 meters had collapsed. The road had also collapsed and homes had been evacuated. It was rebuilt in nine months thanks to a million-dollar intervention by the Region and Government. “Today’s fracture is about twenty meters wide – explained Santi – therefore smaller than that of 10 years ago, but the situation is more complex because from the point of view of the city context it has a greater impact. According to initial estimates there is damage of at least 2-3 million euros.”
The collapse, he adds, “could have been caused by the rains of the last few days although it is too early to make hypotheses”. Certainly what happened “reveals to us the fragility of our city walls on which it is necessary to open a reflection”. And the vice-president of the dem deputies Simona Bonafé immediately requested a check on the health of the walls, announcing “a parliamentary question to ask the government for specific attention”. Messages of thanks to the civil protection system which intervened promptly were expressed by the President of the Region, Eugenio Giani and the President of the Regional Council, Antonio Mazzeo, while the Pisan provincial councilor Paolo Moschi, a representative of the centre-right, launches an appeal for unity: ” Our community is in mourning, because for us the city walls are a part of ourselves. Now is not the time for controversy, which is why we ask the Region and the Government to be close to us. We will only be able to emerge from this ordeal in the best possible way if we all remain united.”
