A team of experts from PROMEDHE project (Protecting Mediterranean Cultural Heritage during Disasters)visited today, 27 September, the areas hit by the 24 August Earthquake in Central Italy. The group started the visit at DICOMAC, the Center for the Coordination of Emergency, and then proceeded to the locations most affected by the earthquake, as to observe up close the difficulties related to movable and immovable cultural heritage safeguard after the disaster.
The mission aimed at analyzing the response capacity of the Italian Civil protection Department in order to cope with the emergency in an area very rich in cultural heritage. Particular attention was paid to cultural assets management and recover procedures, taking into account the fundamental role played by the coordination of all stakeholders involved in the operations.
The general objective of PROMEDHE is to increase dialogue and exchanges over disaster management and cultural heritage protection, as well as to reinforce collaboration in these fields among the national civil protection authorities of Italy, Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, Palestine and the Union Civil Protection Mechanism with an inter-disciplinary approach.
PROMEDHE teams consist of both civil protection and cultural heritage experts coming from the partner countries of the project, as well as from some of the European countries, and from UNESCO and ICCROM, the latter being the international organization that deals with cultural heritage protection in case of disaster. The group will continue on to Lucca, in the next days, to work on the definition of the project priorities, with reference to both national and regional contexts. [… ]
