Canadian students ‘just missed’ disaster that forced train delay

TORONTO — A pair of Canadian student travellers bemoaning what appeared to be a routine delay aboard their train through Italy instead learned they were just minutes from a disastrous bridge collapse on Tuesday.

Tamar Bresge, 23, said she and her friend Melissa Light, 22, both of Toronto, were still processing what had happened.

“Our train would have gone under it in minutes, like less than five minutes,” Bresge said. “We just missed it, like just missed it.”

Bresge and Light were en route from Nice in France to Milan when the sunshine they were in gave way to a fierce storm.

“There was really bad thunder and lightning when it collapsed, so I thought I was just hearing thunder but we were so close that I probably heard something collapsing and just thought it was part of the storm,” Bresge said.

The train made an unscheduled stop at the airport station in Genoa after earlier short delays. Without giving details, train staff announced the delay was indefinite and for the first while, the pair didn’t know what was happening. People thought it was a typical train delay. “Everyone collectively groaned,” Bresge said.

It was only after the train stopped that the two Canadian women, who do not speak Italian, began to learn of what had happened from fellow passengers.

After about two hours, the train moved on into Genoa, allowing them to see the bridge in the distance. “It was completely severed. There was a completely empty portion,” Light said. “It’s crazy. We both feel very grateful that we were on the train before the crash and not underneath it. It definitely feels surreal.”