GENOVA, ITALY--
A bridge on a main highway linking
Italy with France collapsed Tuesday in the Italian port city of Genoa
during a sudden, violent storm, sending vehicles plunging 45 meters
(nearly 150 feet) into a heap of rubble below. Italian officials said at
least 20 people were killed and others injured.A huge section of the Morandi Bridge collapsed at mid-day over an industrial zone, sending tons of twisted steel and concrete debris onto warehouses below. Photos published by the Italian news agency ANSA showed a massive, empty gulf between two sections of the bridge.
There was initial confusion over the exact death toll and officials were still searching for people in the rubble. Firefighters said two people were pulled alive from vehicles in the rubble and transported by helicopter to a hospital.
The head of Italy's civil protection agency, Angelo Borrelli, told reporters at a news conference in Rome that the collapse left 20 people dead and 13 injured. He said all the victims appeared to all have been in vehicles that plunged from the bridge.
Earlier, an Italian transport official, Edoardo Rixi, had said that 22 people were killed and 13 injured in the collapse.
Borrelli said 30-35 cars and three heavy trucks were caught up as an 80-meter (260-foot) stretch of the bridge collapsed.
Borrelli said highway engineers were checking the safety of the bridge at other points and that some areas were being evacuated as a precaution. He said they were still trying to figure out the reason for the collapse.
"You can see there are very portions big of the bridge (that collapsed). We need to remove all of the rubble to ascertain that all of the people have been reached," Borrelli said, adding that more than 280 rescue workers and sniffer dogs units are at work. "Operations are ongoing to extract people imprisoned below parts of the bridge and twisted metal."
Video of the collapse captured the sound of a man screaming: "Oh God! Oh, God!" Other images showed a green truck that had stopped just short of the gaping hole in the bridge and the tires of a tractor trailer in the rubble.
Firefighters told The Associated Press they were worried about gas lines exploding in the area from the collapse.
Italy's transport minister, Danilo Toninelli, called the collapse "an enormous tragedy."
News agency ANSA said Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte will travel to Genoa later Tuesday. "We are following minute by minute the situation," Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said on Twitter.
The disaster occurred on a highway that connects Italy to France, and northern cities like Milan to the beaches of Liguria.
It came on the eve of a major Italian summer holiday on Wednesday called Ferragosto, which marks the religious feast of the Assumption of Mary. It's the high point of the Italian summer holiday season when most cities and business are closed and Italians head to the beaches or the mountains. That means traffic could have been heavier than usual on the Genoa highway.
The Morandi Bridge is a main thoroughfare connecting the A10 highway that goes toward France and the A7 highway that continues north toward Milan. Inaugurated in 1967, it is 45 meters (148 feet) high, just over a kilometer (.6 miles) long.
The collapse of the bridge comes eight days after another major accident on an Italian highway, one near the northern city of Bologna.
In that case, a tanker truck carrying a highly flammable gas exploded after rear-ending a stopped truck on the road and getting hit from behind itself. The accident killed one person, injured dozens and blew apart a section of a raised eight-lane highway.
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A major motorway bridge has collapsed near the Italian city of Genoa, leading to vehicles falling some 100m (328ft).
Italian Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli said it was likely to be "an immense tragedy", while police sources said at least 11 people had died.
The head of the local ambulance service was quoted by one source as saying there were "dozens of dead".
Video footage appears to show one of the towers holding up the suspension bridge collapsing in stormy weather.
The police linked it to what they called a violent cloudburst.
The collapsed section had mostly fallen on rail tracks below, officials told the AFP news agency, adding that cars and trucks had also fallen.
One image posted by the regional emergency services shows a truck perched at the end of the surviving bridge section immediately before the drop, and says rescue workers are operating en masse at the scene.
The bridge, built in the 1960s, is known as the Morandi bridge (Viadotto Polcevera or Polcevera Viaduct). The missing section was dozens of meters in length, and ran across the span of the Polcevera stream.
Italian newspaper La Repubblica described that part of the city as "densely inhabited".
The structure collapsed shortly before noon local time (10:00 GMT) during heavy rain. Video shared by the police of the incident suggests a major vertical support, as well as the road itself, was part of the collapse.
Source:BBC.com
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Dozens of people are reported to be dead after a large section of a road bridge collapsed in the northern Italian city of Genoa.
Rescue workers say about 10 vehicles were involved when a 200m (650ft) section of the Morandi Bridge collapsed during a sudden and violent storm.
The Italian Ambulance Service says there are "dozens of dead", local news agency Adnkronos reported.
Image: The collapse is reported to have been caused by a structural defect One person has been rescued alive from the rubble and flown to hospital by helicopter, ANSA news agency reported.
Pictures of the aftermath showed two large white lorries overturned and smashed into pieces, lying upturned with their wheels in the air, while rescue workers searched the area, which is covered with huge chunks of concrete and metal.
Another picture showed a white car flattened as if it had been in a crusher, its doors squeezed outwards and its windscreen shattered.
Image: A car lies wrecked after the bridge collapsed Video showing parts of the structure falling into the water has been posted to Twitter by local police and what appears to be flashes of electricity are visible as concrete columns shatter and drop.
Around 200 firefighters are responding to the accident and have told the Associated Press they are concerned about gas lines.
Image: The motorway bridge which collapsed in Genoa A witness told Sky Italia television he saw "eight or nine" vehicles on the bridge when it collapsed in what he called an "apocalyptic scene".
Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli said in a tweet that he was "following with great apprehension what seems like an immense tragedy".
Image: Genoa bridge collapse Maria Luisa Catalano of the Genoa highway police said work was ongoing, adding, "we don't know numbers of victims or injured yet".
Image: A lorry teeters near the edge after the bridge collapsed Other pictures included one of a green truck that had stopped on the bridge just yards short of the gaping hole in the road surface.
The bridge is part of the A10 toll road which runs into the port city.
Restructuring work on the bridge, which was constructed in the 1960s, was carried out in 2016.
The collapse is believed to have been caused by a structural weakness, the ANSA news agency said.