Italy searches for answers as bridge crash stirs anger
genoa — Italy is searching for answers on Sunday after paying its respects to the dozens killed by a collapsed bridge in Genoa, as the country’s new government continues to battle the underfire motorway company that manages.
The death toll from the disaster rose to 43 on Sunday after firefighters discovered three bodies, reported to be those of a couple and their nine-year-old daughter, overnight inside a car extracted from the rubble of the viaduct.
“The bodies of the final three missing people were found overnight,” Italy’s fire service said on Twitter Sunday.
“The fire service is continuing its inspection of the area in order to rule out the eventual presence of people not reported missing.”
The findings mean that all those reported missing after Tuesday’s tragedy have now been accounted for, although rescuers are continuing to comb the wreckage. Two of the nine injured still in hospital are in a serious condition.
The announcement followed the discovery Saturday of the body of a labourer in his 30s in the rubble and the death of another man in hospital.
The disaster has caused public outrage and unleashed a fierce debate over the state of Italy’s infrastructure. Rome has blamed the collapse on Autostrade per l’Italia, which manages almost half of the country’s motorway network including the stricken A10 road that included the bridge.
But Giovanni Toti, president of the Liguria region where Genoa is located, asked that the government concentrate on drafting an “emergency law” for Genoa “that will allow us to work in a speedy fashion” rather than the battle with Autostrade.
The prosecutor investigating the bridge collapse has criticised past management of Italy’s infrastructure.
Francesco Cozzi said the state had “abdicated” its responsibility to ensure road safety by handing motorway management to the private sector, in an interview
“The philosophy of our system today sees a state stripped of its powers, a sort of absent owner,” he told the Corriere Della Sera newspaper.
Meanwhile, Toti said that the hundreds evacuated from homes near or even under what remains of the bridge would be given new housing “within eight weeks”.
“We are working day and night to find comfortable accommodation for everyone,” he wrote on Twitter on Sunday. —