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Bad weather persists in Italy where it does a lot of damage. Sunday, November 24 in the afternoon, a motorway bridge collapsed. This happened on the A6 motorway that connects the coast to the city of Turin to the north. No casualties are reported. By a happy coincidence, it seems that no car was running on the building at that time.
From our correspondent in Rome, Anne Tréca
A year and a half after the collapse of the Genoa bridge, which had left 43 dead, this new catastrophe raises many questions among Italians. After weeks of rain, it is a subsidence of ground which made fall this viaduct. As is often the case in Italy, this stretch of motorway towards Turin was built on pilasters, on the mountainside.
The wave of bad weather that has plagued the peninsula for several weeks now has eroded the soil. A mudslide from this mountain fell on the suspended highway and broke it under its weight. According to the governor of the region, about 2 meters of mud cover the remains of the road that has fallen into the ravine. The second bridge that carries traffic in the opposite direction, it remained him intact. But as a precaution, the entire highway was closed.
When, in August 2018, the bridge of Genoa collapsed, it was quickly discovered that it was particularly in bad condition. It is early to determine if this is also the case of the Savona Bridge. The tragedy of Genoa was the most deadly but here it is also remembered that three other important bridges have collapsed for three years. Then in Genoa, it was quickly discovered that the technicians in charge of the maintenance had systematically watered down their reports to minimize the obsolescence of the bridge. We just learned that the sensors placed on the bridge to constantly check its robustness were out of order for 3 years.
Bad condition of bridges in Italy
A report to the government on the state of the bridges in Italy revealed that, in addition to the poor state of many works, 1,425 viaducts on the peninsula did not have an owner, and no document allowed to know from which authority they come under, and therefore they are not maintained at all. So, for now, the authorities do not seem to question the structure of the A6 bridge, or even its maintenance. But we can not exclude anything.
Torrential rains hit Italy this autumn. The government is taking special precautionary measures to deal with this exceptional wave of bad weather. And this is the most alarming, especially in Liguria, Piedmont. The city of Turin is flooded, the river Po overflows. On the coast, the ports are devastated. Further south, Florence was in danger of being flooded last week. Venice was again, Sunday, November 24.
We see infrastructure that is sluggish, inadequate or not maintained. For ten years, the public expenditure of maintenance works melted like snow in the sun, and now it cracks everywhere ... under a particularly trying weather. The immediate problem is that the government is in continuous crisis between the Five Stars and the Democratic Party. Unable to decide on any urgent issues. If you question an Italian, according to his sensitivity, he will tell you that he has nothing left but prayer or luck.