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EARTHQUAKES

Italy’s Amatrice put on list of world’s most endangered heritage

The town of Amatrice, all but destroyed in a earthquake last year, has been added to a list of the world’s most endangered heritage sites.

Italy's Amatrice put on list of world's most endangered heritage
Amatrice in April 2017. Photo: Filippo Monteforte/AFP

Amatrice, in central Italy, is one of 25 at-risk sites on the 2018 World Monuments Watch. Compiled by the World Monuments Fund, the list aims to highlight heritage that is in danger of being lost to natural, economic or political threats.

A 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck Amatrice on August 24th 2016, killing 299 people and injuring hundreds more.

The town itself was devastated. Its mayor, once in charge of what billed itself “the most beautiful village in Italy”, announced: “Our town does not exist anymore”.

As aftershocks and smaller quakes continued to wrack the region, thousands of inhabitants left and remain in temporary shelter.

Today Amatrice is empty, still strewn with rubble. Just one of its historic landmarks survived: the bell tower of the medieval church of Sant’Emidio, which the World Monuments Fund called “an emblem of hope and resilience amid the devastation”.

Photo: MIBACT/World Monuments Fund

Sant'Emidio's bell tower. Photo: MIBACT/World Monuments Fund.

The rest of the ruins need protection and reinforcement, the organization said. It also called for better preparedness everywhere that world heritage is at risk from natural disaster, including retrofitting historic buildings and keeping comprehensive records of precious assets.

Italy has a dedicated police unit for the protection of cultural heritage, known as the Art Squad. Its officers worked round the clock to recover, secure and restore more than 26,000 pieces of art damaged in the Amatrice earthquake and subsequent tremors.

Photo: MIBACT/World Monuments Fund

Since 2002, the church of Sant’Emidio had housed the city’s museum. Photo: MIBACT/World Monuments Fund.

Seven years prior to that disaster an earthquake destroyed much of the 13th-century city of L’Aquila, prompting the World Monuments Fund to place it on its 2014 watch list.

Since then, the fund says, millions of euros have been pledged to help restore the town’s baroque treasures, but “the slow pace of reconstruction remains a cause for concern”.  

Photo: MIBACT/World Monuments Fund

The remains of Amatrice's Sant'Emidio church require structural stabilization and sheltering. Photo: MIBACT/World Monuments Fund.

EARTHQUAKES

Turkish community in Germany gathers to help earthquake victims

The earthquake in Turkey and northern Syria has shaken the whole of Germany - but especially those who have relatives in the disaster area. 

Turkish community in Germany gathers to help earthquake victims

In dozens of cities in Germany, donations are being collected for victims of the massive earthquake, which as of Wednesday afternoon had claimed more than 11,000 lives.

People are bringing tent stoves, flashlights, diapers, fleece blankets, and hand warmers. One of the many collection points has been organized by the German-Turkish care service Dosteli in Berlin.

At the governmental level, Germany — home to about three million people of Turkish origin — will” mobilise all the assistance we can activate”, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said on Wednesday.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had a call with Erdogan and sent his “deep condolences”, as a search and rescue team left Tuesday afternoon with 50 rescuers and equipment. 

​​The EU said it was “funding humanitarian organisations that are carrying out search and rescue operations” in Syria as well as providing water and sanitation support and distributing blankets.

Charities line up to help

Particularly in Berlin, where over eight percent of the population is of Turkish origin, people have lined up down streets to drop off supplies. But they have led large donation efforts in cities like Frankfurt and Hamburg, where several businesses like bars set aside space to collect supplies,

The Dostali team had been sorting clothes and hygiene items all night, packing them and loading them into trucks. “Almost the entire Turkish diaspora in Berlin was there,” one volunteer told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ)

The helpers organized themselves via appeals in social media. From the collection points, the donations are to be transported by trucks and planes to the affected regions. 

READ ALSO: Who are Germany’s foreign population and where do they live?

In response to an inquiry from the FAZ, Turkish Airlines confirmed that it was delivering donations from 14 countries to the Turkish crisis areas, Germany being one of them.

The Turkish community in Germany is well connected via social media – “and everyone wants to help,” said Kübra Oguz, a volunteer with the Puduhepa e.V., initiative founded by Turkish migrant women.

In order for this to happen in a targeted manner, she recommended directly donating money, which could then be funneled to buy food, hygiene products or shoes, depending on the need.

Several organisations in Germany and worldwide are also accepting donations for humanitarian aid, include UNICEF, Save the Children and Aktion Deutschland Hilft.

With reporting from AFP.

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