gregjrichards
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2010
- Messages
- 12,478
- Reaction score
- 70,436
Sky News U.K reports 35 people have died.
I can’t believe this tragedy.
I can’t believe this tragedy.
Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
I can’t believe this tragedy.
The disaster shocked the world but many locals feared the bridge would collapse for years and held their breath every time they crossed the vital arterial road.
'The state of the bridge always concerned us. Nobody has ever crossed that bridge with a light heart,' Genoa resident Elizabeth told the BBC.
'Everybody has always done it praying that the bridge wouldn't fall down. Today that happened.'
There were also concerns the Italian mafia could have contributed to the bridge's collapse by their construction companies being involved in maintenance work - including shoring up the foundations.
'Mafia-related companies are known to have infiltrated the cement and reconstruction industries over the decades and prosecutors have accused them of doing shoddy work that cannot withstand high stress,' Canada's Globe and Mail wrote.
A bridge that collapsed killing at least 26 people in the Italian city of Genoa was almost certainly brought down by a fatal flaw in its construction or wear and tear inspectors missed, experts say.
'No way was this felled by lightning': Engineers say 'wobbly' Genoa bridge that collapsed during a storm was a deathtrap with a 'huge flaw that maintenance missed'
Engineers say wobbling Genoa bridge that collapsed had a 'huge flaw that maintenance missed' | Daily Mail Online
If this is the case there needs to be urgent and rigorous inspection and testing of all the other bridges built to the same or very similar designs around the world.
Although most seem to have been in Italy, there are others in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Libya and Canada.
Riccardo Morandi - Wikipedia
These bridges seem to have been built to be quite rigid despite spanning considerable distances. I thought bridges had a degree of flexibility built in to allow them to survive high winds and so on, so maybe this rigidity is part of the problem.
Of the Genoa bridge, it's being said it would have been cheaper to replace it than keep patching it up but the authorities preferred to spend money on completely new projects.
Additionally this bridge was a key section of one of the key motorways between Italy and France and the most convenient route from Italy into Spain, so taking out and rebuilding the bridge was always going to be extremely disruptive and unpopular with the transport industry. It would have taken years to demolish and rebuild and no doubt the authorities had their heads in the sand over the situation.
Italy’s governing populist party wrote off safety fears about the motorway bridge that collapsed on Tuesday killing dozens of people as a children’s “fairy story”, it has emerged.
The Five Star Movement (M5S), which has been leading the country’s government since earlier this year, has made political capital out of opposing major construction and infrastructure projects, which often drawn opposition in Italy because they can disruptive to local residents.
Additionally this bridge was a key section of one of the key motorways between Italy and France and the most convenient route from Italy into Spain, so taking out and rebuilding the bridge was always going to be extremely disruptive and unpopular with the transport industry. It would have taken years to demolish and rebuild and no doubt the authorities had their heads in the sand over the situation.
Some architects and engineers had warned that the bridge, built by Italian civil engineer Riccardo Morandi in the 1960s, suffered from fatal design flaws; reinforcement work was carried out on it in 2016 in an attempt to shore it up. A complete rebuild was not carried out to avoid disruption, however.
Aha. One of the reports seems to be saying that work had been going on on the foundations, which must refer to one or of the pylons/towers. If the pylon went first, the road sections either side of it had no chance.
An Italian professor has blamed the Genoa bridge collapse on the architect that designed it, dismissing claims that rain or poor maintenance caused the tragedy.
The work of Italian architect Riccardo Morandi, who died in 1989, has come under scrutiny since the highway bridge named after him fell apart amid stormy weather, killing 38 people, on Tuesday.
Engineering professor Antonio Brencich said Morandi had wrongly estimated the ageing of his reinforced concrete structure over time and said the collapse was 'not due to rain or poor maintenance'.
Another Morandi bridge in Venezuela, built to a similar design to the one in Genoa, partially collapsed in 1964 after being hit by an oil tanker.
plus the storm was really intnese
People need to go to jail.
Engineering professor Antonio Brencich said Morandi had wrongly estimated the ageing of his reinforced concrete structure over time and said the collapse was 'not due to rain or poor maintenance'.
And sometimes they have:
Vaiont Dam | History, Construction, & Disaster
I read that the resulting megatsunami caused by the landslide was so enormous that it would have completely blocked out virtually all of the sky in that photograph.
Probably it did, and yet the dam itself still stands.
A fire last Friday destroyed an electricity transformer, forcing the closure of the Urdaneta bridge and leaving millions without power for several days, while experts say the weighing system has not worked for years.
Marcelo Monot, former director of a private engineering company in the surrounding state of Zulia, said no maintenance had been carried out on the Venezuelan viaduct's reinforced-concrete piers for more than two decades.
'The weighing system has not worked for years, so it is not calculating the weight of the cargo vehicles, which represents a risk,' he said.
Venezuelans have long been concerned about the country's crumbling infrastructure after a slump in oil-prices coupled with corruption and mismanagement brought the economy to a standstill, causing chronic food and medicine shortages.
People need to go to jail.
Agreed. They also need independent inspectors of all the bridges to try and prevent future tragedies.