Leaning Tower of Pisa 'safe for 300 years'

London, May 29: The famous leaning tower of Pisa has stopped moving for the first time in its 800-year history and according to engineers, who have stabilised the Italian monument, it should remain so for the next 300 years. Engineers are confident that their hard work of more than 10 years to rescue the Leaning Tower of Pisa has been successful and should last 'at least three centuries'.

"All of our best hopes have been confirmed. We can now say that the tower will not move again for at least three centuries," the Telegraph quoted Michele Jamiolkowski, a Turin-based engineer who led the project to stabilise the tower, as saying. Currently, the tower leans 13 feet off centre, and has been straightened by 14.5 inches since 1999 with the help of a 20 million pounds restoration project. The tower, which has been leaning almost since building work first began in 1173, was closed to the public in 1990 because of safety fears. The 183-foot tower was nearly 15 feet off vertical and its structure was found to have been weakened by centuries of strain.

ANI