Amir condoles on bridge collapse
KUWAIT CITY, Aug 14, (Agencies): His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah on Tuesday sent a cable of condolences to Italian President Sergio Mattarella expressing sincere grief towards the motorway bridge that collapsed in the northern Italian city Genoa and the damage it caused to public utilities and properties as well as for the fallen victims, wishing the injured rapid recovery.
His Highness the Crown Prince Sheikh Nawaf AlAhmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah and His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah sent similar cables to the Italian president over the tragic accident.
About 30 people were killed on Tuesday when a giant motorway bridge collapsed in heavy rain in the Italian city of Genoa in what the government called an “immense tragedy”.
The collapse, which saw a vast stretch of the A10 freeway tumble on to railway lines in the northern port city, came as the bridge was undergoing maintenance work and
as the Liguria region, where Genoa is situated, experienced torrential rainfall.
“Unfortunately there are around 30 dead and many injured in a serious condition,” Interior Minister Matteo Salvini told reporters.
Rescuers scouring through the wreckage, strewn among shrubland and train tracks, said there were “doz-
ens” of victims, as rescue helicopters winched survivors on stretchers from the ruined bridge.
Cars and trucks were tangled in the rubble and nearby buildings damaged by vast chunks of concrete, according to an AFP photographer at the scene.
The incident – the deadliest of its kind in Europe since 2001 – is the latest in a string of bridge collapses in Italy, a country prone to damage from seismic activity but where infrastructure generally is showing the effects of economic stagnation.
Patrick Villardry, a French firefighter who came from Nice to help the rescue effort, said the task was huge.
“The first victims have been evacuated and now we have to search under the wreckage of buildings, but there are thousands of tonnes of concrete,” he told AFP.
President Giuseppe Conte was due to visit the scene later Tuesday.
Aerial footage showed more than 200 metres (650 feet) of the viaduct, known locally as the Morandi bridge, completely destroyed.
“I’m following with the utmost apprehension what is happening in Genoa and what looks like it could be an immense tragedy,” Transport and Infrastructure Minister Danilo Toninelli said on Twitter.
Salvini, who is also leader of the nationalist League party in a powersharing government, vowed to hold those responsible for the disaster accountable.
“I have gone over this bridge hundreds of times, and I commit to digging and finding out who is responsible for an unacceptable tragedy, because it’s not possible that in 2018 you can work and die in these conditions,” he said.
The cause of the disaster was not immediately clear, although weather services in the Liguria region where Genoa is situated had issued a storm warning Tuesday morning.
The national motorways body said on its website that “maintenance works were being carried out on the base of the viaduct”, adding that a crane had been moved on site to assist the work.
Shares in Italian company Atlantia, which runs much of Italy’s motorway network including the collapsed stretch of the A10, plunged on the Milan stock exchange after the news.
The shares were temporarily suspended when their slide exceeded 10 percent and closed the day down more than five percent at 23.54 euros.
European Commission chief JeanClaude Juncker in a statement expressed “my deepest sympathy and sincere condolences to the families and friends of those who have died, and to the Italian people”.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel also sent her condolences
Genoa, home to half a million people, is located between the sea and the mountains of northwestern Italy.
Its rugged terrain means that motorways that run through the city and the surrounding area are characterised by long viaducts and tunnels.
The Morandi viaduct, completed in 1967, overspans dozens of railway lines as well as an industrial zone housing several factories.
One factory, immediately next to one of the viaduct’s support columns, was virtually empty on Tuesday due to a national holiday, and seems to have sustained minimal damage.
In March last year, a couple were killed when a motorway overpass collapsed on their car near Ancona on the country’s Adriatic coast.
A pensioner died in October 2016 when his car was crushed by a collapsing bridge over a dual carriageway between Milan and Lecco.
That incident was blamed on bureaucratic bungling which led to a fatal delay in the bridge being closed after it was reported to be showing significant cracks.
In latest development, firefighters searched into the night on Tuesday for survivors and bodies amid the rubble of a motorway bridge that collapsed in the morning in the northern Italian port city of Genoa, killing at least 30.
While that remained the official death toll, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said from Genoa on Tuesday evening that the number would rise. Italy’s ANSA news agency reported that some 35 probably were killed, citing fire brigade sources.
A 50-metre-high section of the bridge, including a tower that anchored several supports, crashed down with as many as 35 vehicles driving on it, landing on the roofs of two warehouses, plunging huge slabs of reinforced concrete onto train tracks and into a riverbed.
More than 400 people were evacuated from 11 buildings located near or below the still-standing of the bridge, the city said. The collapse appears not to have killed anyone under the road, but only those who were driving on it, the civil protection agency said earlier.