A bridge collapsed Wednesday, injuring Aulla in northern Italy, official sources said, another example of the dilapidated Italian road infrastructure after the deadly collapse of a viaduct in Genoa at the summer 2018.
About 300 meters long, the bridge, which spanned the Magra river, “collapsed in on itself,” Roberto Valettini, mayor of Aulla, told Italian media.
Usually very crowded, it was not on Wednesday due to containment measures imposed by the coronavirus pandemic, which prevented a drama.
The victim presents, “according to initial reports, minor injuries,” said the Ministry of Transport in a statement.
Minister Paola De Micheli asked Anas, the company managing this route since 2018, for a detailed report.
The dilapidation of Italian infrastructure pointed to
This accident “is extremely serious. The first alarms on the stability of the bridge date back to 2013, but they had fallen into a vacuum. Probably because a possible closure of the bridge would have (…) had significant economic repercussions on the whole territory “, denounced Deborah Bergamini, vice-president of the Transport Committee of the Chamber of Deputies and member of the Forza Italia party of Silvio Berlusconi (center right).
According to the Italian agency AGI, reports of motorists had multiplied after a wave of bad weather in early November.
Italian infrastructure is known for its age. Many of them, like road bridges, are over 50 years old. It was the case of Genoa viaduct which collapsed in August 2018, causing 43 deaths. In Rome, experts also regularly remind us of the fragility of the Magliana bridge over the Tiber, used by 20 million vehicles each year.
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