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Bridge Collapses in Genoa, Italy, Killing at Least 20 Italy Bridge Collapse Leaves at Least 20 Dead
(about 3 hours later)
ROME — A highway bridge in the heart of Genoa, Italy, collapsed on Tuesday, killing at least 20 people, officials said, as it dropped dozens of vehicles, and tons of concrete and steel, onto buildings, streets, vehicles and railroad tracks below. ROME — A highway bridge in the heart of Genoa collapsed on Tuesday, killing at least 20 people as it dropped dozens of vehicles, and tons of concrete and steel, onto buildings, streets and railroad tracks below, in a disaster that raised concerns about the state of Italy’s aging infrastructure.
Just before noon, the roadway fell as much as 45 meters, or about 148 feet, taking about three dozen cars and three trucks with it, said Angelo Borrelli, chief of the Civil Protection Department. Just before noon, the roadway fell as much as 45 meters, or about 148 feet, taking about three dozen cars and three trucks with it, said Angelo Borrelli, chief of the Civil Protection Department. The cause of the collapse was under investigation.
The government put the number of people confirmed dead at 20, but Edoardo Rixi, the deputy transport minister, told the Italian news agency ANSA that the figure was 22. Officials said that at least 13 others were known to be injured — five seriously — and rescue workers continued to pick through the debris in search of more victims. “The image is truly apocalyptic,” Matteo Pucciarelli, a journalist reporting on the disaster, said in a video posted to the website of the newspaper La Repubblica. “It’s as if a bomb had fallen on this very important artery.”
“The toll is destined to grow,” Mr. Borrelli said. “All the rubble must be moved,” he added, to ensure that any vehicles crushed beneath the wreckage were found. The national government said that 20 people were confirmed dead, while the regional government of Liguria said 22 had been killed, but officials warned that the number was likely to rise as rescue workers continued to pick through the debris.
The transport minister, Danilo Toninelli, wrote on Twitter that the collapse “looks like an immense tragedy.” Officials said that at least 13 other people were known to be injured, five of them seriously. “All the rubble must be moved,” Mr. Borrelli said, to ensure that any vehicles crushed beneath the wreckage were found.
The cause of the failing was unclear, but Mr. Rixi said that the bridge had shown some “signs of problems” in the past. The national police noted that there was a “violent cloudburst” at the time, and there were unconfirmed reports that the bridge collapsed after it had been struck by lightning. The failure of the 51-year-old bridge poses a financial and political challenge to Italy’s new government, a coalition of populist parties that was formed in early June. Danilo Toninelli, the national transport minister, said on Tuesday that the government had been “given a mandate” to improve the condition of the country’s aging infrastructure, including bridges.
Speaking on national television, Mr. Toninelli said that the new government of Italy had “given a mandate” to improve the condition of the country’s aging infrastructure, including bridges. “Many need ordinary maintenance,” he told the state broadcaster, RAI news, “to avoid tragedies of this kind.”
“Many need ordinary maintenance,” he said, “to avoid tragedies of this kind.” He said that all of the national agencies responsible for Italy’s infrastructure would be called on to verify its safety. “An immense task,” he added, “because many viaducts, galleries and bridges were built during the 1950s and 1960s” and were showing signs of their age. “This is what Italy needs to do, now,” he said.
Photographs and videos posted online showed a stretch of road missing on the Morandi Bridge — estimated by some as 100 meters, or about 330 feet, long — with vehicles stopped just short of the precipice. The cause of the collapse was unclear, but Edoardo Rixi, the deputy transport minister, said that the bridge had shown some “signs of problems” in the past. He did not elaborate.
Jagged chunks of debris the size of houses protruded at sharp angles from a riverbed, and huge pieces of the road, still partly propped up by support pillars, were left dangling. The national police noted that there was a “violent cloudburst” at about the time the section fell, and some witnesses said the bridge was struck by lightning just before it collapsed, though it was not clear whether the storm contributed to the failure.
The images showed cars and trucks that had been damaged in the collapse, while rescue workers struggled in a driving rain to reach anyone who might be trapped. “I saw the bridge collapse in front of my eyes; the debris from the collapse landed 20 meters away from my car,” Davide Ricci, who was driving nearby along the bank of the Polcevera River, told the Genoese newspaper Il Secolo XIX. “It felt as if electricity was traveling from above downward, as if one of the beams had been struck by lightning.”
Firefighters with rescue baskets were hoisted by cranes onto the piled wreckage to pull people from the rubble. A stretch of the road estimated by some witnesses to be long as 100 meters, or about 330 feet, fell to earth in a massive dust cloud, and many photographs and videos posted online captured the scene. Remarkably, some of the people driving on the bridge walked away unharmed.
The collapsed section is part of the A10 highway, near where the bridge crosses the Polcevera River. The segment that fell had loomed high over multistory structures. “I am a miracle,” one of them, Davide Capello, told the Turin newspaper La Stampa. He said he was driving to the city when “I heard a noise first and everything collapsed.” His car fell, too, and came to rest wedged between massive pieces of debris, yet somehow he was unhurt.
The A10 is a major east-west artery through the port city, and it extends west along the coastline to the border with France. The Morandi Bridge, built of reinforced concrete, opened in 1967, and local news media reported that it had been under repair. A woman told a Genoa television station that as she drove on the highway, vehicles in front of her suddenly stopped and tried to turn around. “They told us to run away because the bridge had collapsed,” she said.
More than 240 firefighters, working with dogs, were at the site to remove survivors from the wreckage. A spokesman for the civil protection agency in Liguria, the region that includes Genoa, said the collapse had missed some nearby houses but had crushed part of a warehouse belonging to the city’s garbage collection agency; it was unclear whether anybody had been inside. Cars and trucks had been abandoned on the road, just short of the precipice, as their occupants had fled on foot.
Jagged chunks of debris the size of houses protruded at sharp angles from a riverbed, and huge pieces of the road, still partly propped up by support pillars, were left dangling. The scene was strewn with cars and trucks that had been damaged in the collapse, while rescue workers struggled in a driving rain to reach anyone who might be trapped.
Firefighters with rescue baskets were hoisted by cranes onto the piled wreckage to pull people from the rubble. Others loaded the injured into paramedic helicopters, or picked their way across the mounds of debris with dogs trained to sniff and listen for people.
Still others used power tools to cut their way through blocks of concrete and steel reinforcement to reach victims. In all, more than 240 firefighters took part in the rescue efforts, officials said.
“I drive on that bridge four times a day and I know that they do maintenance work on that bridge every single night,” said Edoardo Serra, a pharmacist in Genoa who was due to go back into the city center an hour after the bridge collapsed. “They normally closed one direction to traffic and allowed double circulation on the other.”
The span is known as the Morandi Bridge, for the renowned engineer who designed it, Riccardo Morandi, who died in 1989. Like many of his signature structures, the bridge, which opened in 1967, was built of reinforced concrete. Local news media reported that it had been under repair, though the nature of that work was not immediately clear.
“It was a bold structure, designed for a volume of traffic that was much lower than it is today,” said Diego Zoppi, a Genoese architect and member of the national council of architects. The bridge, he said, required constant maintenance because it was an essential traffic hub for the city, connecting Genoa’s eastern and western suburbs with highways to major cities in the north, like Milan.
It was too soon to know why the bridge had collapsed, he added. “Certainly it was subject to wear and tear, because of the traffic,” which had increased significantly since the 1960s.
“The problem is that concrete represented for decades a kind of idea of faith in progress, but now it is showing signs of deterioration, so cities have to upgrade their infrastructures — otherwise these tragedies are destined to repeat themselves,” he said.
Mr. Morandi designed several major bridges using similar designs and materials, primarily in Italy but also in Libya, Colombia, Ecuador and elsewhere.
The bridge in Genoa carries the A10 highway — a major east-west artery through the port city that extends west along the coastline to the border with France — across the Polcevera River. It is one of two just major highway bridges that span that waterway, in the western part of the city, and officials warned that the loss of the crossing could significantly affect the movement of people and goods.
A spokesman for the civil protection agency in Liguria, the region that includes Genoa, said the collapse had missed some nearby houses but had crushed part of a warehouse belonging to the city’s garbage collection agency; it was unclear whether anybody had been inside.