Fears death toll will rise as 26 confirmed killed in Italian motorway bridge collapse
ITALY’S Prime Minister has said that 26 people were killed and 16 injured after a bridge collapsed in Genoa.
Giuseppe Conte travelled to the site of the disaster late yesterday in the port city, calling it an “immense tragedy”.
He told RAI television: “It is shocking to see the twisted metal and the bridge collapsed with victims who were extracted.”
Fire service sources said they believe that 35 people are dead and 12 are missing.
A child i s belie ved t o be among the dead.
Mr Conte also praised the hundreds of rescue workers still at the site, saying “they saved people who fell 45 metres and are now alive and in the hospital”.
He added that the death toll is expected to rise further.
A huge section of the Morandi Bridge fell at midday over an industrial zone, sending tonnes of twisted steel and concrete onto warehouses below.
Photos showed a massive gap between two sections of the bridge.
The head of Italy’s civil protection agency Angelo Borrelli said up to 35 cars and at least three trucks were on the 80m section of the span that collapsed.
Hundreds of firefighters and emergency officials were searching for survivors in the rubble with heavy equipment.
At l east f our people were pulled alive from vehicles under the bridge, Italian news agency ANSA reported.
Video of the collapse captured a man screaming: “Oh, God! Oh, God!”
Other images showed a green truck that had stopped on the bridge just short of the edge and the tyres of a tractor trailer in the rubble.
One man who was standing under the bridge in front of his truck when the bridge collapsed called it “a miracle” that he survived.
The middle-aged man, who did not give his name, said the shockwave sent him flying over 10 metres into a wall, injuring his right shoulder and hip.
“I was in front of the truck and flew away, like everything else. Yes, I think it’s a miracle. I don’t know what to say. I’m out of words,” he said, walking away from the site.
Genoa police spokesperson Alessandra Bucci told Reuters they were continuing with rescue operations “because we think there are other people alive under the rubble”.
“We have extracted people from the rubble and now we are focusing on assisting the people, and later on we will understand what caused the collapse of the bridge.”
The disaster occurred on a motorway that connects Italy to France, and northern cities like Milan to Liguria.
The Morandi Bridge connects the A10 highway that goes toward the French Riviera and the A7 highway that continues north toward Milan. Inaugurated in 1967, it is six miles long.
It was the second deadly disas-
Vehicles sitting on the edge of the bridge ter on an Italian highway in as many weeks.
On August 6, a t anker truck carrying a highly flammable gas exploded after rear-ending a stopped truck and getting hit from behind near the northern city of Bologna.
The accident killed one person, injured dozens and blew apart a section of a raised eightlane highway.