Italy on Monday marked the fifth anniversary of the collapse of Genoa’s Morandi bridge with a minute’s silence and calls for justice for the 43 people who died in what authorities say was an example of greed-driven negligence.
Infrastructure Minister Matteo Salvini told relatives of the victims, local residents and authorities at the Genoa commemoration that the victims were not victims of a flood or natural disaster. Rather, he said, they were “victims of greed, of people who didn’t do their job.”
A huge section of the Morandi Bridge broke during a storm on August 14, 2018, when motorways were jammed on the eve of Italy’s biggest summer vacation.
Fifty-eight people went on trial last year, charged with manslaughter and other charges. They include former executives and technicians from the company that ran many of Italy’s bridges and highways, as well as former Salvini ministry officials.
Prosecutors allege the defendants knew the bridge, built in the 1960s, was at risk of collapse and cut corners on maintenance to save money. The bridge designer had recommended regular maintenance of the concrete span to remove rust, especially due to the corrosive effect of humid and salty air from the nearby Ligurian Sea.
Salvini told the crowd, gathered under the new section inaugurated in 2020 to replace the Morandi, that he had read part of the trial documentation. Although he said that he did not want to prejudge the outcome, he maintained that the evidence of greed and negligence was clear.
“There were billions of euros in profits, some of which should have been reinvested in maintenance, which obviously, given what happened, were not invested in maintenance,” he said.
He added that for next year’s commemorations he hopes that Parliament will approve a law, proposed after the collapse, that considers the victims of this type of negligence in public works equivalent to the victims of terrorism or organized crime, in terms of their right to receive financial compensation.
After his speech, and while church bells rang and sirens roared in Genoa, the crowd observed a minute’s silence at 11:36 a.m., the time of the collapse.
Egle Possetti, a leading member of the Morandi victims’ relatives committee, told the crowd that the families trusted the judicial system, but that the progress of the trial to date had been discouraging.
He cited testimonies from executives and technical experts who denied any responsibility, claiming they did not know or remember details, and evidence from a Ministry of Transport that blindly accepted, “almost on its knees”, the word of a maintenance company it had to regulate.
“There have also been testimonies from many people who knew about the problems with this bridge and did not speak. They pretended not to hear,” he said, his voice cracking. “They played with the lives of millions of people, without the slightest civic sense to raise their voices.”
Although the Morandi collapse was the deadliest collapse in recent years, Italy has witnessed other bridge and highway collapses that have highlighted the dilapidated state of the country’s aging transport infrastructure. Salvini told the crowd that his ministry, responsible for 21,000 bridges and viaducts across the country, was working to bring “decades of inattention” to maintenance up to speed.
