Night shots Venice - gondolas |
| 00:00 |
Man walking across square | [Church bells] | 00:09 |
Woman waving from window | CAFAGNA: When Venetians wake each day the first thing they hear, before the tourists arrive, is the sound of church bells. | 00:16 |
Church bell | [Church bells] | 00:24 |
Bell Towers | CAFAGNA: Venice has more than 60-bell-towers. Most of them ancient and most of them leaning. | 00:34 |
Leaning bell towers | Some appear perilously close to tumbling. | 00:45 |
| Like many of the distressed buildings in Venice, authorities prop them up however they can. | 00:51 |
St Mark's bell-tower | But the most dominant of all towers in Venice is this one. St Mark's bell-tower in the piazza that borrows its name. | 01:04 |
| As the tower approaches its hundredth anniversary the chief conservation architect for St Marks Square, Ettore Vio worries it too now is in danger of lurching | 01:13 |
Vio. Super: | VIO: With St Mark's tower which was rebuilt, we are in 2007 so it's 95 years old, it leans 7 centimetres. The one that collapsed had a lean of 30 centimetres, towards the north-east. | 01:25 |
New bell tower | CAFAGNA: This relatively new construction of 1.2-million bricks is a replica of the 1,000 year old bell-tower of the same name, in the same spot that collapsed in 1902 and therein lies the problem. It was rebuilt with the same faults. | 01:49 |
Vio | VIO: They didn't lay a slab at the base of towers. They built a wall all around and the tower would rest on very little. | 02:10 |
Cracks in tower | Cracks are starting to appear at its base. There's no immediate danger of collapse, but its foundations are surrounded by water which is hastening | 02:25 |
Gondola | damage to St Mark's tower. Fearing the worst, Venetian authorities called in the best. Structural engineer Professor Giorgio Macchi has built a solid reputation saving some of | 02:34 |
Photos of bell towers | Italy's finest structures from downfall. | 02:46 |
Prof Macchi | MACCHI: Mmm... Pisa, Pisa. | 02:49 |
| CAFAGNA: He led the engineering team that rescued the leaning tower of Pisa. | 02:51 |
| Now he has a plan to halt the decline of St Mark's tower. CAFAGNA: If there was no intervention could the tower lean or | 02:56 |
Macchi | eventually collapse? MACCHI: Oh it would lean, it would lean, certainly. | 03:03 |
Capanile de S. Marco | CAFAGNA: Titanium rods, six centimetres thick will be wrapped twice around the foundation stones of St Mark's tower acting as a kind of belt preventing any movement. | 03:08 |
Canals | Like all of Venice, the foundations are underwater and the area will have to be drained for the work to be carried out. Maria Giovanna Piva has an onerous job. | 03:22 |
| She's in charge of efforts aimed at stopping the perpetual flooding of Venice. | 03:32 |
Piva. Super: | PIVA: We have to put this restoration in context, and the context is the complete restoration of St Mark's Square and the Schiavone embankment. But that's just one part of a major puzzle in the safeguarding of Venice by the water management authorities. | 03:39 |
St. Mark's square | CAFAGNA: Last year St Mark's square flooded 200 times. | 03:58 |
Leaning bell tower | The flooding also causes the soil to subside, hence so many leaning towers. | 04:01 |
Construction on water project | Moses, according to some, is the great saviour of Venice. It's the name given to the controversial six-billion dollar project aimed at controlling the tidal flows into Venice. The city's 60-thousand residents will have to wait until 2012 to see if it works. | 04:10 |
Cruise ship in lagoon | In the meantime, they lament other problems flooding into Venice such as the increasing pressure from tourists. | 04:34 |
| 13-thousand pour in each day. | 04:45 |
Church bell | [Church bell] | 04:53 |
St. Marks square | CAFAGNA: In the scheme of Venetian restoration work through the ages, the St Mark's bell tower project will be a relatively quick job. It will take just two years and around 16-million dollars. | 04:57 |
| VIO: What really matters is that it stays upright. | 05:11 |
Vio. Super: Ettore Vio | In a sense one becomes involved with all one's efforts and thoughts and heart. To safeguard the properties that have passed down through the ages... to me it's a huge honour to have this role. | 05:18 |
Woman sweeping | [Church bell] | 05:34 |
| CAFAGNA: Povera Venezia -- Poor Venice -- are the words often cried by residents and protectors of this jewel of the Adriatic. | 05:44 |
Venice shots | But they're quick to admit that all it takes to lift their pessimism is a glance and appreciation of the city's treasures. | 05:53 |
Credits: | Reporter: Josephine Cafagna Camera: Michael Cox Louie Eroglu ACS Editor: Steven Baras-Miller | 06:12 |