Curiosities

The exploitation of the quarries of portoro

The exploitation of the quarries of portoro had such a development that in 1862 were surveyed as many as thirty.

One of the most efficient quarries was the Cava Merlini on the island of Palmaria (1908) which occupied many quarrymen, some locals, others from Carrara.

The work was very hard and very dangerous, the sectioning of the marble block was carried out with helical wire (900-1000 meters long) operated by an electric motor located at the bottom.

In Porto Venere it is still remembered the landslide of 100 tons occurred in the quarry of the Crocetta, where the gate was extracted and in which four quarrymen died, the day of the feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8, 1937.

Due to the wild exploitation of the marble quarries, the morphology of the promontory of Porto Venere is altered.

In correspondence with the quarries, definitively closed in 1932-83 for the rigorous commitment of the then municipal administration that intervened to prevent the destruction of the territory, there are tunnels and other “artificial forms” that, unfortunately, disfigure the landscape.

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