Italy: Pompeii ruins in an emergency

ROME, July 4 (UPI) -- The Italian government declared a one-year state of emergency Friday at Pompeii, the city buried under volcanic ash more than 2,000 years ago.

Culture Minister Sandro Bondi is to name a commissioner to oversee the archaeological site, one of the most important in the world, the Italian news agency ANSA reported. The commissioner will be in charge of administration while Pietro Giovanni Guzzo, the archaeological superintendent, will remain in charge of preservation.

Antonio Irlando, who heads a regional group involved with cultural preservation, said Pompeii's buildings are falling to pieces.

''We lose a minimum of 150 square meters of frescoes and plaster each year because of the lack of maintenance," Irlando told the newspaper Corriere della Sera. "It's the same for stones -- at least 3,000 end up as crumbs each year."

More than 2 million people visit Pompeii each year. But the site suffers from poor signage and has only three public bathrooms.

Pompeii and nearby Herculaneum were buried when Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D. When excavations began at the site several hundred years ago, archaeologists discovered a small Roman city almost perfectly preserved under volcanic ash.