Bridge disaster in Italy
 

Just seen this on the news, how awful

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45183624

Terrible disaster. Condolences to those who have lost loved ones.

How on Earth can a modern bridge fail so catastrophically?

Blimey, that is shocking :eek:

It was built in the 60s and apparently concerns had been raised previously.

Utterly tragic.

It really is just awful!

Story so far seems to be unfolding into something from a crime novel :eek:


If it's true that it was all built, maintained and operated my the Mafia, could this disaster finally be the event that finally ends their stranglehold on everything?!

It wouldn’t surprise me if there were some sort of kick backs in the history of this and other bridge construction - we are talking of Italy after all:shrug:

But the other issue that is coming out of this is the budget restrictions placed on recent Italian Governments (quite a long list! :getmecoat:) by the EU. Italy has a huge budget deficit- the largest in the Eurozone and the EU set low spending targets for the country’s governments which if - as being reported by Bloomberg- shows that maintenance of this bridge and others was compromised then the already strong anti EU feeling in Italy will increase I am sure.

They have an anti EU Government coalition in power at the moment who have been pushing for the EU to relax the spending restrictions for Italian infrastructure projects. If a link - however tenuous - can be established then I can see far more than a war of words breaking out between the EU and the Italian people.

What a mess .....

This one makes it three in a row in Italy starting 2016. Last year it was the Camerano overpass Click and the year before that it was the Lecco overpass. Click

A bridge in Sicily was damaged in 2015 but that was I think due to a landslide rather than structural failure.

Hmmm! Sobering reading - whoever is found to be at fault - as Madderz posts - I think the call for change will be loud and strong.

Italians have a long history of managing to not pay any or very little income tax. And a similarly long history of public office fraud, and contract quantity and quality dilutions. This produces a situation where the build quality requires very high maintainance costs but there is not enough money to go round. Quarts and pint post. And everyone knows but- buy another expensive suit or cashmere sweater ? Chris S.