Rescuers hunt for survivors of Italian bridge collapse
DESPERATE HUNT FOR SURVIVORS AS ITALIAN BRIDGE COLLAPSE KILLS DOZENS
Another four metres and he would have been dead. Antonio Rubino slammed on the brakes of his car just short of the point at which the bridge in Genoa collapsed. A few seconds later and he would have plunged into the void — as did all the cars and trucks in front of him.
He was one of several drivers to cheat death Tuesday when the Morandi bridge collapsed during a heavy thunderstorm and torrential rain.
“I was the last car behind those who died,” said Rubino. “In front of me the asphalt just completely collapsed. I’m alive by a miracle.
“Luckily, I was not shunted from behind, otherwise I would have gone down with the others.
“I was three, maybe four metres from the abyss. There was total panic. People got out of the cars and ran.”
The driver of a supermarket delivery van also reacted in time, screeching to a halt just short of the 50-metre drop.
The driver was in deep shock, said Giovanni D’Alessandro, the director general of supermarket chain Basko.
“He’s OK but he’s in shock. It’s a stretch of road that our vans use every day. There’s heavy traffic and often you can’t drive very fast. Perhaps that’s why the driver had time to brake.”
About 26 people, including a child, died in the collapse of the highway bridge, with up to 35 cars and five to 10 trucks plummeting to the ground.
“Around 30 people are dead and many others are seriously injured,” Matteo Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister, said.
Nearly 300 firefighters and rescue workers battled into the night to find survivors beneath giant mounds of concrete debris and twisted steel girders. They used sniffer dogs to detect any signs of life in scenes familiar from the deadly earthquakes that have hit Italy in the last few years.
“We’re not giving up hope, we’ve already saved a dozen people from under the rubble,” said Emanuele Giffi, a fire service official.
“We’re going to work round the clock until the last victim is found.”
As dusk fell, the emergency services installed large spotlights to illuminate the wreckage.
“We’re trying to get two people out of a car. They’re still alive,” said a firefighter from Tuscany who stepped out of the rubble for a bottle of water and a brief reprieve from the sound of helicopter rotor blades, ambulance sirens, barking search dogs and humming generators.
The relatives of people feared to have died in the disaster gathered at a Red Cross tent for counselling.
“They are simply waiting, so we are trying to give them the support they need,” said a psychologist.
At least 15 people were reported to be injured, 10 of them critically.
Survivors were winched to safety by helicopters and flown to hospital, while four people were pulled alive from vehicles buried under the rubble.
The 200-metre-long section of the Morandi bridge collapsed during an intense thunderstorm which brought torrential rain.
“First the central pylon crumbled, then the whole thing came down,” said Davide Ricci, who was driving when the bridge came down.
“The debris … came to within 20 metres of my car.”
Angelo Borrelli, the head of Italy’s civil protection agency, said the exact number of dead and injured had yet to be established.
“You can see there are very big portions of the bridge (that collapsed). We need to remove all of the rubble to ascertain that all of the people have been reached. Operations are ongoing to extract people imprisoned below parts of the bridge and twisted metal.”
The disaster happened as millions of Italians headed to the coast to celebrate a national holiday on Wednesday known as Ferragosto, traditionally the height of the summer tourist season.
A lack of maintenance, structural failure, rain and lightning strikes were all factors that could have contributed to the collapse.
Questions are being asked as to whether the 50-yearold bridge’s structural integrity had deteriorated. A 2011 report by Italy’s highways agency said it carried heavy traffic volumes and required constant maintenance.
Salvini, the head of the hard-right League party as well as interior minister, said those responsible for the collapse would be held to account.
He said he wanted the “names and surnames of those to blame because a tragedy like this in 2018 is not acceptable. They will have to pay, pay for everything, and pay a lot.”
The bridge, linking Genoa with the Italian Riviera and the south of France, spans an area of light industry as well as several railway lines. It underwent restructuring work two years ago.
The tragedy came just a week after a tanker carrying liquid gas was involved in an accident and exploded on a motorway near Bologna in northern Italy, killing one person and injuring dozens.