Locals rush to protect heritage as Venice floods again
Exceptionally high tidal waters rolled relentlessly through Venice again yesterday, forcing the closure of St Mark’s Square to the public, and flooding most of the lagoon city’s already devastated centre before easing.
Forecasters warned that the danger of more wind-propelled high tides remained throughout the weekend.
The Italian government has issued an international appeal for donations to help repair damage to the city’s rich cultural heritage after floods on Wednesday that were the worst in decades.
On Wednesday, water levels reached 1.87 metres above sea level, the highest flooding since 1966. Yesterday, the tide peaked at 1.54m above sea level.
Shopkeepers built knee-high barriers across their front doors, but were flooded anyway as water rose through the city’s foundations, bubbled up through the drains and seeped through their walls. There was panic buying of bread after all 22 of the city’s bakeries closed.
More than 50 churches had reported damage from the tides, Culture Minister Dario Franceschini said. Carabinieri officers from the corps’ world-renowned squad of art experts were being deployed to map the damage to art treasures.
The Italian Space Agency was gathering radar data from satellites to detect any signs that Venice’s bell towers may have shifted or that their foundations might have been weakened.
Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro has estimated the cost of the damage at hundreds of millions of euros, and blamed climate change for the city’s plight.
He also called for the speedy completion of the city’s longdelayed Moses flood defence project – a series of moveable barriers in the lagoon that can be raised when high winds and high tides combine to threaten to send ‘‘acqua alta’’ (high water) rushing across the city.
Completion of the multibillioneuro project, under construction since 2003, has been delayed by corruption scandals, cost overruns, and opposition from environmentalists worried about its effects on Venice’s delicate lagoon ecosystem.
Opposition politicians in the Veneto region, which has Venice as its capital, noted wryly that the local centre-right majority had just voted against an amendment to fund efforts aimed at dealing with climate change when the regional assembly hall was flooded on Wednesday, forcing them to flee.
University students in Venice have rushed to libraries and other institutions filled with books and manuscripts to help shift them to higher storeys. At least one volunteer was using a hair dryer to dry a precious volume, page by page.
The Italian Society of Authors and Editors said Venice’s bookstores and libraries had been ‘‘gravely damaged’’, and launched a fundraising campaign. It said one bookstore, poignantly named Acqua Alta, had been completely submerged.
St Mark’s Basilica, Venice’s most famous monument, must be surrounded with a 2m wall if it is to survive floods caused by rising sea levels, a senior official says.
The barrier, which could be made of glass, was urgently needed to save the basilica and its 11th-century mosaics and 125 different types of rare marble, said Carlo Alberto Tesserin, the head of the board responsible for the church.
At the basilica, precious mosaics were under nearly 40 centimetres of corrosive salt water. Elsewhere in the church, marble panels bulged out as water expanded the ancient brickwork behind them. ‘‘A wall is the way to save all this unless Venice’s flood barrier is completed and works,’’ Tesserin said.