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Blame game begins over ‘huge tragedy’ in Italy

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Alvise Armellini -


Just days have passed since the collapse of the Morandi motorway bridge in Genoa, and rescuers are still trying to find survivors in what has been billed as a “huge tragedy.”


Italy’s populist government has rushed to find culprits, and the first in the firing line have been the private motorway company that managed the bridge, and the European Union.


“The more I think about the Genoa dead, the more I get angry. Those responsible for this disaster will be named and will have to pay, pay everything, pay dearly,” Interior Minister Matteo Salvini tweeted. The Morandi bridge was a busy motorway bypass.


A 200-metre-long section of it crashed from a height of 45 metres on Tuesday, causing at least 30 vehicles to plunge and killing more than 40 people.


For Transport and Infrastructure Minister Danilo Toninelli, it is


the fault of Autostrade per l’Italia, the motorway operator controlled by the Benetton family.


The Benettons are famous for founding the well-known United Colors of Benetton fashion brand, and their holdings also include the Autogrill airport and motorway catering business.


“If they cannot manage our motorways, the state will do it,” Toninelli wrote on Facebook, urging Autostrade’s management to resign and announcing hefty fines and the revoking of


motorway concessions.


He accused Autostrade of cutting corners on necessary maintenance work while making “billions” in profits, and paying a “few million” in taxes.


The company insisted on Wednesday that the Morandi bridge was “monitored... every three months” with “highly-specialised machinery” and following “international best practices.”


For his part, Salvini blasted EU budget discipline rules, arguing that they limited Italy’s capacity to invest on safety upgrades for roads and public buildings.


He threatened to flout “European restrictions that stop us from spending money on safety for the schools where our children go or the motorways on which our workers travel.”


The EU has no direct say over Italian road safety spending, but in recent years has clashed with successive Rome governments over their failure to reduce mammoth public debt.


Salvini and Toninelli’s belligerence masked deep differences of opinion between their two parties over the need for infrastructure upgrades.


Toninelli’s Five Star Movement (M5S) has historically opposed large-scale investments on new high-speed train lines and highways, while Salvini’s far-right League favours them.


In Genoa, the M5S fought a battle against the “Gronda,” a planned new bypass that could make the Morandi bridge redundant. Work on it is expected to start in the coming months.


In 2013, the anti-establishment party publicised on its website a statement by “No Gronda” activists dismissing as “hogwash” the notion that the Morandi risked “imminent collapse.”


Reiterating the M5S stance, Toninelli said on Wednesday that Italy does not need “colossal” new infrastructure, but rather maintenance work for existing structures, many of which date to “the 60s and 70s.”


The Morandi in Genoa was inaugurated in 1967 and was known to locals as “Brooklyn bridge.” Several experts described it as a bold but flawed piece of engineering.


Two years ago, an engineering professor at Genoa University, Antonio Brencich, called the bridge a “failure of engineering” with “very high maintenance costs.”


On Wednesday, Brencich said that the bridge was like an old car requiring “continuous” maintenance, and “when you have to fix a car too frequently, you should buy a new one.”


The bridge should long have been knocked down and rebuilt from scratch, but “the problem was that it was considered a monument, a masterpiece, and they did not want to,” he said. — dpa


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