Cars plunge as Italian highway bridge collapses
A highway bridge collapsed Tuesday in the Italian city of Genoa during a violent storm, sending vehicles plunging 45 metres into a heap of rubble. Authorities said at least 20 people were killed, although some people were found alive in the debris.
A huge section of the Morandi Bridge fell at midday over an industrial zone, sending tons of twisted steel and concrete onto warehouses below. Photos from the Italian news agency ANSA 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 80metre section of the span that collapsed.
Hundreds of firefighters and emergency officials were searching for survivors in the rubble with heavy equipment. At least four people were pulled alive from vehicles under the bridge, 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 tires of a tractor trailer in the rubble.
There was confusion over the death toll, which changed several times during the day.
Civil protection authorities said 20 were killed and 16 were injured, at least 10 of them severely, based on multiple verifications from the prefecture’s office. But Genoa Mayor Marco Bucci told Sky TG24 that the number of dead was above 25 and that 11 injured were pulled from the rubble. Two other officials earlier put the toll at 22 dead with 13 injured but said it was expected to rise.
Borrelli told a news conference in Rome that the dead appeared to all have been in vehicles that fell.
One man who was standing under the bridge in front of his truck when the span collapsed called it “a miracle” that he survived. The middle-aged man, who did not give his name, said the shockwave sent him flying more than 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.
The disaster occurred on a highway that connects Italy to France, and northern cities like Milan to the beaches of 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 just over a kilometre long.