Exacltly one month later, the cause of the accident and the extent of the damage caused to the Arena must be ascertained as soon as possible. The Verona Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Carabinieri of the Venice and Mestre Cultural Heritage Protection Unit are investigating after the collapse of the Comet Star, the archisculpture that has decorated the Arena for almost 40 years during the Christmas festivities, fell onto the steps of the amphitheatre in Piazza Bra. Investigators are gathering all the necessary information to shed light on what happened on Monday 23 January during the dismantling of the steel structure. An investigation has placed the Arena under sequestration until at least 30 January. Only when the dynamics of the accident have been ascertained will the piece of the Star that gave way be removed from inside the monument. From the initial investigations, the impression is that the damage is not entirely recoverable, there is a lot of crumbled material at the bottom of the accident and it is very complex to reconstruct the steps as they were. The investigation is focusing on the causes that caused the Star to fall on the Arena and on the assembly and disassembly operations of the structure. Among the hypotheses under investigation is that of human error, or perhaps several factors that combined to cause the accident. One of these factors could have been the weather, since a strong wind was blowing over Verona that Monday. But it is also possible that there was a failure of a bolt or that the Star was not properly secured during dismantling. The Municipality of Verona is the injured party as owner of the monument.
