Alarm after roof falls in at Caserta palace

(ANSA) - Naples, December 11 - A sizeable piece of the roof of the Caserta royal palace fell late on Sunday morning, fortunately not injuring anyone. The incident occurred in the 'Sala delle Dame di Compagnia', where there were no visitors at the time since access to the balcony was restricted. The pieces fell in the middle of the room, near the queen's bathroom.
    "There was no structural" damage, museum director Mauro Felicori said.
    While awaiting more in-depth assessments scheduled for Monday, Felicori said that prior restoration efforts in that area had made use of outdated methods. "At the moment," he said, "one can assume that it was the result of restoration work done after the 1930 earthquake that did not hold up well and strengthening interventions carried out in 1985, when cement injections were still used. Over time, these were found to be incompatible at times with lime." "Unfortunately," he added, "these issues - which have nothing structural about them - are not visible from the outside and in previous months there were no signs of detachment when for the first time a survey was carried out on the state of conservation of the internal finishings of the halls in the historic apartment. Next week we will assign the restoration works." Felicori discussed what technical experts had said, noting that the layer of plaster that fell was from the entire surface area of the window frame and that it had not given prior signs of detachment and that there had not been any signs of water infiltration, cracks, or degradation of any sort. The fact that the plaster fell all together makes it seem that it was a layer that had been entirely redone and redecorated in the repairs after the 1930 earthquake.
    The section is close to the part of the building that suffered the worst damage from the 1980 earthquake, as well, while in 1985 chains were installed in the walls using long cuts and cement injections, which may have caused it as well.
    Surveyors noted that this part of the royal apartment "is a vulnerable section of the palace structure", evinced by the fact that "after every earthquake, even with an epicenter far away, cracks in the plaster reopened in the stairwell", he said. Software showing micromovements may shed further light on the matter.