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- THE WEEK, Page 23WORLDIt's Falling (Really!)
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- The Leaning Tower of Pisa gets a steel girdle to hold it up
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- They've been saying it for eight centuries, but this time
- it's really true: the Leaning Tower of Pisa could fall down any
- minute. The white marble monument, which now leans 16.5 ft. off
- center at the top, has been closed to tourists for two years
- while an international panel of experts came up with a plan for
- saving it. Everybody has ideas, including a Florentine who
- suggested erecting a massive statue of Pisa's patron, St.
- Ranieri, to hold up the bell tower, but engineers finally
- decided on a more mundane approach. About 800 tons of lead
- ingots are to be installed at the base to counter the tower's
- precarious inclinations. To give it some support in the
- meantime, workers last week began girdling the structure with
- 18 steel bands.
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