2018 Ponte Morandi Collapse

On 14 August 2018, around 11:36 local time (09:36 UTC) a section of the Ponte Morandi (English: Morandi Bridge) in Genoa, Liguria, Italy, collapsed during a rainstorm, killing forty-three people. The remains were demolished in June 2019. The replacement bridge, the Genoa-Saint George Bridge was inaugurated a year later.

Background

The cable-stayed bridge was designed by civil engineer Riccardo Morandi, from whom its unofficial name was derived. The viaduct was built between 1963 and 1967 along the A10 motorway over the Polcevera River and officially opened on 4 September 1967.

Collapse

On 14 August 2018, around 11:36 local time (09:36 UTC), during a torrential rainstorm, a section of Ponte Morandi collapsed. The collapsed span was centred on the westernmost cable-stayed pillar, pillar 9, and crossed the Polcevera, as well as an industrial area of Sampierdarena. Eyewitnesses reported that the bridge was hit by lightning before it collapsed. Between 30 and 35 cars and three trucks were reported to have fallen from the bridge.

A large part of the collapsed bridge and the vehicles on it fell into the rain-swollen Polcevera. Other parts landed on the tracks of the Turin–Genoa and Milan–Genoa railways, and on warehouses belonging to Ansaldo Energia, an Italian power engineering company. The latter were largely empty because the collapse occurred on the eve of a major Italian public holiday, .

The initial hypotheses were that a structural weakness or a landslide caused the collapse. The bridge was reportedly undergoing maintenance at the time of the collapse, including strengthening the road foundations.

The southern stays reportedly gave way explosively due to corrosion and damage. With only four stays, one of them giving way might have been enough for the structure to lose stability. A preliminary investigative report suggested the pillar itself may have collapsed first, but Genoa prosecutors had not provided the report's authors with a local video showing the southern stays gave way first. There is speculation that lightning may have struck the stays, or a landslide could have destabilised the base.

In July 2019, a video showing the fall of the bridge was made public. It originated from the nearby Ferrometal company cameras, showing that both southern stays and locally attached road sections at pillar 9 started dropping virtually simultaneously. From the movement of the top crossbeam, the tension cables of the southeastern stay apparently gave way. Immediately, the complete road on the pillar and soon after also the pillar itself fell. However, Autostrade, the company that maintained the bridge, objected that the video still does not show all bridge structures, so it does not really explain the cause.

At the time of the collapse, the bridge was managed by Atlantia S.p.A. (formerly Autostrade S.p.A.), a holding company operating toll motorways and airports, which is controlled by the Benetton family