But in the meantime, the tower is safe for a few reasons, Fiorentino said. Within the next 300 years, it could tilt back to its 5.5-degree lean from the 1990s, shifting atop the soft soil yet again. This was only a temporary fix, he said, and it's impossible to estimate how much longer the tower will stand.
"When they did it, they said they back the clock of the tower by 200 years," Fiorentino said. These efforts decreased the tower's lean by 10%, leaving it at a 5-degree slant. After more brainstorming, the committee attempted "underexcavation" - that is, using long tubes and drills to noninvasively remove the ground beneath the north side of the tower's foundation.Īs soil was removed, the structure slowly started to rotate northward. But this didn't stop the rate of tilt, even after they added an extra 300 tons (272 metric tons) to the north side, along with ground anchors, according to Fiorentino.
The committee first affixed 600 tons (544 metric tons) of lead to the base of the tower's north side in 1993, hoping to compensate for the sinking southern side. "There is a great debate around how much we can change about the monument. "It's one of the symbols of Italy," Fiorentino told Live Science. In 1990, it appointed a committee of experts to mitigate the lean - but without eliminating it and its tourist attraction.
As the tower's slant gradually grew to 5.5 degrees, the Italian government took action to protect the landmark, according to Fiorentino.
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