Italy Installs Barriers At Tourism Sites To Block Terror Attacks

Concrete barriers are fast going up around Milan’s Duomo cathedral and the Galleria Vittorio Emanual, the city’s 19th century shopping arcade, to mitigate potential damage by car/van terrorist attacks such as the one that mowed down pedestrians at Las Ramblas in Barcelona, according to several European sources.

The barriers are meant to block such attacks on piazzas as well as streets leading to top attractions. Bologna and Turin placed protective barriers to separate vehicles from pedestrians. Likewise, the central streets of Palermo in Sicily are scheduled to follow suit, while police patrols in Genoa and Naples are notably robust.

Airport strategies – such as metal detectors and x-ray machines – already are in place at major museums, galleries and monuments such at the Uffizzi in Florence and the Colosseum. Even with advance ticket sales, safety measures have kept travelers waiting in long lines in the heat during this peak season.

In Rome, concrete blocks already surround Via della Conciliazione that leads to St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City, while blocks protect the entrance to the Via del Corso, the city’s famous shopping avenue and Via dei Fori Imperiali, the concourse that runs from the Piazza Venezia to Ancient Rome and the Colosseum.

The Colosseum presents a great challenge as it attracts some three million visitors a year and authorities are still trying to figure out the best way to cordon off entrance to the massive monument.

According to a report in The Guardian UK, internet café owners will have to keep official records of all their clients and police will have greater powers to monitor phone calls and emails from those sites.

The same report revealed the Italian government has unveiled plans for anti-terrorism drills in all big cities to test how emergency services would cope with an attack. Italy has been building its anti-terrorist strategies, including more than 6,000 troops on the streets increasing its surveillance of new arrivals in the country.

In another report, the French government began to move ahead with a plan to build a bulletproof barrier around the Eiffel Tower earlier this year.