30 dead in Italy bridge collapse

Genoa, August 14 

Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said on Tuesday that 30 persons have been killed after a motorway bridge collapsed in the northwestern port city of Genoa.

“Unfortunately there are around 30 dead and many injured in a serious condition,” Salvini told reporters in the Sicilian city of Catania.

The collapse, which saw a vast stretch of the A10 freeway tumble on to railway lines in the northern port city, was the deadliest bridge failure in Italy for years, and the country’s deputy transport minister warned the death toll could climb further.

Rescuers scouring through the wreckage, strewn among shrubland and train tracks, said there were “tens of victims”, while images from the scene showed an entire carriageway plunged to the ground.

Cars and trucks were trapped in the rubble and nearby buildings damaged by vast chunks of concrete, according to an AFP photographer at the scene.

Italian media reported that 200 metres of the “Morandi” bridge had fallen away. A fire service spokesperson said the bridge had mostly fallen on rail tracks 100 metres below and that “cars and trucks” had fallen with the rubble. — AFP