My miracle bridge escape

Stunned locals gaze upwards in sheer disbelief

TERRIFYING Lorry driver’s near miss

IN Genoa yesterday there was a hole where normality should be as this subdued, grieving city woke up to what looked like a disaster movie.

The supermarket lorry still perched high on the bridge where it braked to a halt just short of the brink. The motorhome abandoned as holidaymakers fled for their lives. The cars and truck wreckage littering the rubble far below.

The aftermath of Genoa’s bridge disaster is, however, terrifyingly real. A day earlier, a routine drive to work or a trip to the seaside became the last journey of the victims’ lives.

Yesterday, many of the 450 locals who have been evacuated from their homes sat out in the streets gazing upwards at the missing bridge section in sheer disbelief.

One woman had an empty basket ready to rescue her beloved cat from her condemned flat. A couple waited for hours with two empty suitcases, hoping to be allowed home to collect their belongings.

Many had their own tales about this monster of a bridge. The driver who used to speed over it as fast as possible because of the way it wobbled. The resident who heard it “creaking” just last week.

Crowds were moved back from the disaster zone amid fears that the remaining sections had moved and were in danger of collapse.

Ultimately, the bridge will be rebuilt and the Genoa skyline will take on a new normality.

But for families who have lost loved ones, there will always be a hole in their lives.