Bridge collapse is a stark reminder of how mafia left Italy crumbling
IT HAS been the stuff of macabre legend for years – that those who cross the Sicilian mafia end up encased in the concrete pylons of viaducts and bridges.
The truth about the mafia and construction, however, is more prosaic – and far more lethal.
Rather than dumping rival gangsters into wet cement, organised crime groups imperil people’s lives by building bridges, tunnels, roads and apartment blocks with low quality materials and slapdash techniques.
Using cement containing too much sand, for instance, produces bridges and viaducts liable to crumble.
Italian prosecutors have launched an investigation into Tuesday’s collapse of the Morandi Bridge in Genoa, a disaster which has so far claimed the lives of 38 people, with another 10 to 20 still missing.
There is no suggestion, at this point, that organised crime had any role in the construction of the bridge. It was completed in 1967, before the mafia organisations of the south had started their infiltration of northern Italy.
But the bridge collapse is the latest symptom of Italy’s woeful infrastructure, a sector where big projects have provided rich pickings for the Camorra of Naples, the ‘Ndrangheta of Calabria and Cosa Nostra in Sicily.
“There are severe problems with sub-contracting. They are fly-by-night operations and they cut corners,” said John Dickie, an expert on organised crime and professor of Italian studies at University College London.
“They use improper concrete to make a profit and that obviously can be very dangerous.”
Natural disasters have also provided rich pickings for the corrupt in Italy.
Organised crime syndicates moved into central Italy after an earthquake hit the mountain city of L’aquila in 2009, according to the-then head of the parliamentary anti-mafia commission.
The same thing happened in the aftermath of the country’s next big earthquake, which hit the town of Amatrice in 2016.
“They disgust me,” Nicola Zingaretti, the governor of the Lazio region, said at the time.
“Italy is split between good people who give their lives and work hard … and scoundrels, thieves, fraudsters and people who live and profit from death and disasters.”
Decades of under-investment, political paralysis and dysfunction have taken as heavy a toll on Italy’s infrastructure as the depredations of the mafia and corrupt businessmen.
Work has only just finished on a major highway linking Salerno, south of Naples, with Reggio Calabria in the toe of the Italian boot – despite it being started in 1966.
Concrete bridges and flyovers built during the post-war boom in the Fifties and Sixties are now coming to the end of their natural lives – but the political will to replace them is lacking.
“The cost of maintaining these structures is more than the cost of demolishing them and building new ones,” said Antonio Occhiuzzi, the director of the Institute of Technology at Italy’s National Research Council. “We need a sort of Marshall Plan.”
Italy’s populist government has
‘My son will not become a number in the catalogue of deaths caused by Italian failures’
accused Autostrade per l’italia, the firm that managed the Genoa motorway bridge, of putting profits before safety and failing to spend enough on maintenance – a charge the company vociferously denies.
But a report emerged yesterday, commissioned by the company itself, which warned about the condition of the concrete-encased cable stays that held the bridge up.
Atlantia, the holding company that controls Autostrade per l’italia, had no immediate comment.
The report will only embolden the coalition government, which wants heads to roll. Luigi Di Maio, the deputy prime minister and leader of the populist Five Star Movement, says he is determined to revoke all of Autostrade’s concessions to manage motorways in Italy.
The government is demanding that the company rebuild the bridge at its own expense and within a set period of time. It also called on the company to pay to rebuild apartment blocks that will have to be demolished.
“Genoa cannot wait and the injured cannot wait,” said Matteo Salvini, the interior minister.
The government has also lashed out at Brussels, claiming that strict spending rules imposed by the EU had prevented Italy from investing in new infrastructure over the years.
The EU bluntly dismissed the suggestion, pointing out that Italy had been given billions of euros to upgrade its transport network.
A state funeral is due to be held for the victims in Genoa today but some families are reportedly so upset and angry that they have vowed to stay away.
“My son will not become a number in the catalogue of deaths caused by Italian failures,” the grieving father of one victim wrote on social media.
“We do not want a farce of a funeral, but a ceremony at home.”