Major bridge collapse in Italy - dozens feared dead

Keebler Elf said:

Is there no video of the collapse??

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There is one, but it's really grainy and hard to discern what happened. One thing you could see was that the tower that collapsed followed the failure. I.e. it went down last. The implication being that it was not that tower that failed initially. But difficult to say since media reports that there was construction work being carried out on "the foundations" of the bridge. Working on foundations is fraught with risk. (Though the media may mean "substructure" which is different than (purely) foundation work.). Also, the tower could have been twisting to its death which would be synonymous with a foundation sliding away and thus, although it toppled last, it (the tower) was actually what initiated the failure.

Difficult to say without an official report.

One thing that makes me laugh is how the road and bridge infrastructure in Italy (or maybe just certain segments I don't know) is (or more accurately was) managed by a private company.

The Italians have blamed this company for the failure of this bridge. The reality in my opinion is that they have no one to blame but themselves because they came up with the notion of contacting out to the private sector the management of vital infrastructure. What a joke.

The Italians figured that they could get it done cheaper by the private sector and be able to control (i.e. reduce) costs. All it is is a case of pass the hot potato and being wilfully blind.

Private companies now introduce profit into the equation and are hamstrung by budgets from the government which are too low to start with and as a result corners are cut and bridges collapse. It's simply a pipe dream brought forth by uninformed and uneducated government bean counters who only worry about budget and never about what needs to be done to think that they can control cost by simply limiting the amount of money paid to the private company and they (the government) will still receive top quality service.

The reality is very simple. The private company doing the work will have a good number of very highly paid fat cats. They will also have shareholders to which they are beholden to and profits will be the first thing carved off. If 60 percent of the (already too low) budget was actually spent on work boots on the ground, I would be amazed.

And the worst part is that you can see this kind of creative accounting taking root here in Ontario in the last 5 or 10 years where the beancounters have come up with the concept of design, build, finance, operate, maintain for future infrastructure projects.

james t kirk said:

One thing that makes me laugh is how the road and bridge infrastructure in Italy (or maybe just certain segments I don't know) is (or more accurately was) managed by a private company.

The Italians have blamed this company for the failure of this bridge. The reality in my opinion is that they have no one to blame but themselves because they came up with the notion of contacting out to the private sector the management of vital infrastructure. What a joke.

The Italians figured that they could get it done cheaper by the private sector and be able to control (i.e. reduce) costs. All it is is a case of pass the hot potato and being wilfully blind.

Private companies now introduce profit into the equation and are hamstrung by budgets from the government which are too low to start with and as a result corners are cut and bridges collapse. It's simply a pipe dream brought forth by uninformed and uneducated government bean counters who only worry about budget and never about what needs to be done to think that they can control cost by simply limiting the amount of money paid to the private company and they (the government) will still receive top quality service.

The reality is very simple. The private company doing the work will have a good number of very highly paid fat cats. They will also have shareholders to which they are beholden to and profits will be the first thing carved off. If 60 percent of the (already too low) budget was actually spent on work boots on the ground, I would be amazed.

And the worst part is that you can see this kind of creative accounting taking root here in Ontario in the last 5 or 10 years where the beancounters have come up with the concept of design, build, finance, operate, maintain for future infrastructure projects.

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Very well said. But I think you left out the most significant contributor to that cause and effect chain that leads inevitably to collapse. That's us, the miserly taxpayers. This tragedy was set up for failure by Italians in Italy, but human nature is the same everywhere. IT's in our nature that once anything's built and standing we lose interest in paying a dollar — or a lira — more to keep it safe and functioning as it should. Just barely will always be good enough.

In fact we resent the professionals who disturb us with their predictions that 'the longer we put it off, the mere expensive it will be'. We vote out the politicians who try to spend what's needed to keep us current, and hand majorities to the pols who promise our taxes have been wasted, and promise to collect even less, even as we drive roads filling with ever more cracks and potholes, through underpasses that flood from sewers that are never repaired and over bridges daily losing their concrete.

We don't just get the government we deserve, we get the whole civilization, and all of its public works. When bits of it crumble and kill us, they're just giving us what we paid for.

Whatever the fast talker with dyed hair promised would cost the least.

^^^^

I don't know about Italy, but "miserly taxpayers" did not cross my mind. Certainly not in Canada where anyone who makes a reasonable salary is taxed to death. I can assure you that fully half of my salary is gobbled up by taxes.

No, the problem in Canada isn't that taxes are too low, it is that they are allocated improperly. My position is that billions upon billions of dollars are wasted on special interest groups and social welfare instead of being spent where they should be.

I'm certain that italy, like most European countries is spending massive amounts of taxes on social welfare like it grows on trees. (Remember Greece where being a hairdresser was considered an "arduous job" and one could retire to a full government pension at age 48.). Italy is probably the same.

I don't mind my taxpayer dollars being spent on Education, Health Care, infrastructure, national defence, however I completely get bent out of shape when I see untold kajillions of dollars being spent on "truth and reconciliation", or government housing, or gender diversity initiatives, or the like.

Enough of wasting of government money

james t kirk said:

^^^^

I don't know about Italy, but "miserly taxpayers" did not cross my mind. Certainly not in Canada where anyone who makes a reasonable salary is taxed to death. I can assure you that fully half of my salary is gobbled up by taxes.

No, the problem in Canada isn't that taxes are too low, it is that they are allocated improperly. My position is that billions upon billions of dollars are wasted on special interest groups and social welfare instead of being spent where they should be.

I'm certain that italy, like most European countries is spending massive amounts of taxes on social welfare like it grows on trees. (Remember Greece where being a hairdresser was considered an "arduous job" and one could retire to a full government pension at age 48.). Italy is probably the same.

I don't mind my taxpayer dollars being spent on Education, Health Care, infrastructure, national defence, however I completely get bent out of shape when I see untold kajillions of dollars being spent on "truth and reconciliation", or government housing, or gender diversity initiatives, or the like.

Enough of wasting of government money

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No one is taxed to death in Canada. Back when we had the money to build the now-crumbling Gardiner tax rates were higher. And the bodies weren't filling tax accountant's offices. Let's keep the overstatement out of the discussion for just a little.

You and I may well disagree about the particular priorities, but unless you're saying we're already right up to date on necessary maintenance on upgrades for our roads, bridges, transportation systems, sewers systems, water systems, electricity grid and all the other civil engineering our society is built on, then we do need to spend more. Just for the hard goods that keep us healthy, mobile and housed in our cities. The same goes for people who see single moms with babies who'll need schooling, kids without hope turning to gangs and dope, families without homes, reserves without sanitation, instead of a healthy society

Whether we should spend what little we're content to contribute on trains and roads or on truth and reconciliation is all politics, and we settle that stuff, as in all shopping exercises, by picking what we think is the best on offer from the available choices. We've lately gotten so stingy as citizens/consumers that we're picking by price alone, ignoring the quality on offer entirely, and never getting down to sensible decision points like: Counting grams of protein vs. Count Chocula; eggs or Eggos? Or: If we build it will anyone actually use it?; Spend to prevent a problem now or, Pay for the disaster later?

Everything you said about waste, welfare and special interests (Scarborough subway fanatics?) might well be true, but that doesn't make any crumbling bridge stronger, or fill even a tiny pot-hole. There are people who think you've listed real needs and significant issues not waste, and if they get the votes — which they have, and will again — then that sort of 'waste' will continue, as it has since the dawn of time. Either way, you can't do everything by only doing half. And unless you get rid of half the people, that account will come due as in Italy.

We've never yet managed to make better people. who make better decisions and act better than their ancestors. But we can make better stuff, if we're willing to pay what it costs.

james t kirk said:

One thing that makes me laugh is how the road and bridge infrastructure in Italy (or maybe just certain segments I don't know) is (or more accurately was) managed by a private company.

The Italians have blamed this company for the failure of this bridge.

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Sad but true Tiberius and you'll never guess who has the maintenance rights to the A10 - Benetton. How does a fashion company get the rights to bridge maintenance? The rot is pervasive and it not only involves infrastructure. Contractors cut corners in the building of apartments. The loss of life in the Abruzzi Quake would not have been so high if contractors had not cut corners. There have been numerous bridge and condo collapses in Italy, the Morandi bridge is the most spectacular. The Italian Government felt it didn't have a choice in privatizing infrastructure, the cost of keeping Venice above the waterline is a monstrous money pit.

In other news, Genoa homeboy Mattia Perrin is making his debut as Juve's goalkeeper - it's bizarre that Gigi Buffon isn't there.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/jun/16/inside-venice-bid-hold-back-tide-sea-level-rise

Insidious Von said:

Sad but true Tiberius and you'll never guess who has the maintenance rights to the A10 - Benetton. …]

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Actually a construction corporation owned by the Benetton family's holding company.

The Italian press is reporting that an engineering study commissioned by Autostrade last year found that the stays of the section of the bridge that collapsed this week were reacting to vibration 'in a way that does not entirely conform with expectations and requires further investigation,' and may have been related to corrosion in the cables.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6073543/State-funeral-Genoa-bridge-collapse-disaster.html

Aardvark154 said:

The Italian press is reporting that an engineering study commissioned by Autostrade last year found that the stays of the section of the bridge that collapsed this week were reacting to vibration 'in a way that does not entirely conform with expectations and requires further investigation,' and may have been related to corrosion in the cables.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6073543/State-funeral-Genoa-bridge-collapse-disaster.html

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Ingignere Morandi himself pointed in the late seventies to required maintenance for concrete reinforced bridges such as those that he had designed. Corrosion is the worst enemy. Salty marine winds would act to corrode the reinforcements and even, perhaps, attack the concrete. He wanted to see high resistance elastomeric coatings to protect the structures from corrosion.

Morandi was an interesting engineer. This is not the first time that somebody overruled an engineer's recommendations. Did we not learn from the Space Shuttle disaster when the aerospace engineers did not wan it to take off, and the PR people overruled them?

http://www.notizieuniversali.it/201...lo-morandi-metteva-guardia-occhio-alle-crepe/

For those who read Italian;
[h=1]Ponti di Genova e Catanzaro: lo stesso Morandi metteva in guardia: «Occhio alle crepe»[/h] notizieuniversali 19 agosto 2018
[h=4]Anche Riccardo Morandi, progettista e autore del ponte si era convinto che qualcosa, forse, non andava.[/h] Tanto che nel 1979, venti anni dopo la costruzione del viadotto che sormontava la città ligure, sosteneva che occorresse intervenire per rinforzarlo.
“Penso che prima o poi, per i miei ponti, sarà necessario ricorrere a un trattamento per la rimozione di ogni traccia di ruggine sui rinforzi.
Per poi, coprire tutto con elastomeri ad altissima resistenza chimica“, spiegava Morandi. (continua) ↓
A riportare la relazione firmata da Morandi è La Verità.
“La struttura– si legge – viene aggredita dai venti marini. Si crea così un’atmosfera ad alta salinità” tanto da evidenziare una perdita di resistenza superficiale del calcestruzzo”.
Morandi, dunque, era pienamente consapevole del deterioramento che subivano i suoi ponti.
Cosa abbia provocato il crollo che ha ucciso oltre 40 persone non è ancora del tutto chiaro.
Sarà compito della magistratura chiarire il tutto. ↓

Phil C. McNasty said:

45 confirmed dead now

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Riposate in pace, miei cari Italiani defunti.

^ Couldn't put it better.

Insidious Von said:

Ain't it puzzling how Roman bridges are still in use 2000 years after their construction and modern bridges can't last more than 50 years.

With mostly land beneath the substructure, would it have been too much ask to support it with arches? Then all they would have to deal with road repairs. Silly architects!

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One measure of progress is being able to do more with less. Sometimes the best choice, but not always. And even professionals tend to forget that 'what goes up must come down' is as much about stuff we stack up and build as it is about what we throw in the air.

Nothing humans put together will stay up without maintenance. Those Roman bridges that haven't fallen down yet are in the City that built them, maintained over millennia by its unbroken succession of 'dysfunctional' local municipal governments doing the necessary, while the gaudy show of star Consuls, Emperors, Kings, Popes, Dukes, Duces, invaders and foreign conquerors paraded self-importantly across them.

shook.

In doing a little more reading, it seems clear that the bridge had reached the end of its usable life 10 or more years ago and various engineers had been sounding the alarm, but no-one was listening (figuring that the engineers were just being "chicken little"). I guess that goes to show you, maybe you should listen to the guy who engineers bridges if you are politician or a bureaucrat in charge of the Ministry of Transportation. Problem is, I doubt the lesson will be learned.

The design itself was needlessly complicated and in addition, there was absolutely no redundancy in the design. The substructure was such that the failure of any of the V shaped columns would bring the bridge down. It had a drop in centre panel, which again, one failure and down it comes. And worst of all, the stays - there were only two (one on either side), so again, one fails and down comes the superstructure. Lastly, the stays were made of post tensioned concrete. That's just crazy (though admittedly, this bridge is not alone in that respect). The design was inherently high risk. It's a miracle it survived as long as it did.

One thing is FOR SURE, the bureaucrats around the world need to take a hard look at their bridge inventory and if they have a similar designed bridge, they need to look at ensuring that it's not going to collapse and start planning to replace it sooner rather than later.