The 14th August 2018 one of the most serious Italian road tragedies occurred, due to the collapse of the Polcevera Viaduct, also known as the Morandi bridge, in Genoa. On a day of heavy rain, 43 people died, passing by by chance. The memory of the victims is still very much alive in the family, and the wounds are still lacerating for those who survived. A trial, after the collapse, ruled that the bridge was terminally ill and was never treated by the section concessionaire, Autostrade per l’Italia. The Ministry of Infrastructure, turning away, did not make a better impression in the years in which it should have intervened. Now there is a new bridge, Autostrade has been sold by the Benettons and there are 59 people, with degrees of responsibility for the tragedy still to be established.
An interview with the Finance Colonel was published in Repubblica Ivan Bixio, man at the head of the team that conducted the investigation into the collapse. “Four years ago, on August 14, I was there too, running back from vacation. The men of my “First Group” were digging in the rubble together with the other rescuers, they pulled out corpses. It made an impression how small we were in the face of the enormity of the rubble and the tragedy. Two days later the prosecutor gave us the power to investigate. Now, with the investigation closed and the process started, everything has a logical thread. But then we found ourselves in front of a mountain. We did some races against time, especially at the beginning. On the one hand, there was the risk that someone would try to eliminate any evidence, as has happened in some cases. On the other hand, we had to look for videos, it was the week of August 15th and the companies in the area closed, those cameras over-record after 48-72 hours. We found several videos, the best known, that of the company “Ferrometal”, is the only one that gives the disaster in its entirety. Despite this we have tried to investigate without any prejudice, taking into consideration every possible cause of the disaster»Explained Bixio.
An example of an attempt to eliminate the evidence is for example a chat between the then numbers two and three of Aspi Paolo Berti and Michele Donferri, in which he spoke of corrosion of the viaduct tie rods.
During the investigation there were several difficult moments, on a technical and emotional level. “Working on the collapse of the Morandi we found new elements on behalf of Autostrade and the sister company Spea, then in charge of controls. In our opinion, the reports on the health conditions of the other viaducts have been softened, the dangerous and non-standard noise barriers, up to the problems of the tunnels after the collapse of the “Berté” on the A26. We were very worried when, on the instructions of the Prosecutor, we literally went to close the traffic on two Ligurian bridges. I myself traveled to Rome to urge the ministry to carry out tight checks on the network. […] We felt compelled to give an answer to people who had lost everything. As a father, I identified with a child who grows up without parents after such enormity. We knew that they expected facts, but only we were well aware of the possible future scenarios of the investigation. Their determination has helped us a lot“.
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