Rome - The official death toll from the collapse of a motorway
bridge in the Italian city of Genoa was raised Sunday to 43, after
the overnight recovery of the bodies of the last three missing
persons.
The latest names added to the list of the dead were of a family of
three - an Italian-Jamaican couple and their nine-year-old daughter.
Their car was found badly crushed among the rubble in the night
between Friday and Saturday.
The Morandi bridge, a reinforced concrete structure that connected
Genoa's eastern and western sides, gave way on Tuesday during a
thunderstorm, sending more than 30 cars and trucks crashing to the
ground from a height of 45 metres.
The Italian national fire department wrote on Twitter that they would
continue inspecting the area onto where the bridge fell - a dry river
bed, railway tracks and warehouses - "to rule out the possible
presence of persons not reported as missing."
According to an updated death toll released by a Genoa branch of the
Interior Ministry, four people from France, three from Chile, two
from Albania, two from Romania, two from Jamaica and one each from
Colombia and Peru were among the dead.
Nine people are still in hospital, it added.
The Italian government is blaming private motorway operator
Autostrade per l'Italia for the disaster, while the company, whose
leading shareholder is the fashion label family Benetton, denies any
negligence.
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte started Friday legal proceedings to
revoke Autostrade's motorway licence. A day later, the company
announced aid for the families of the victims and pledged to build a
new bridge, at its expense, in eight months.
Saturday was also a national day of mourning, in which state funerals
were held in Genoa for only 18 of the victims. Some of the families
of the dead preferred to hold private ceremonies citing a desire for
privacy or anger with authorities.
Genoa Prosecutor Francesco Cozzi, who is leading criminal
investigations into the disaster, told Sunday's Corriere della Sera
newspaper that by privatizing motorways, the Italian state had
"abdicated" the role of guaranteeing road safety.