Between Brothers

---

It is a year, as a part of a highway Bridge outside of Genoa collapsed, such as cars and trucks raced The Car over. Dozens fell from The Edge and fell 45m to the ground below, leading to 43 deaths. Here, seven closely affected tell their stories.

On 13 August 2018, Emmanuel Diaz, and his brother Henry drove over to the Morandi Bridge . Emmanuel fly to Colombia to study psychology, and Henry gave him a lift to The Airport .

"When we said goodbye, I embraced him very hard, I said to him:" Henry, I love You very much, I'm so proud of You . "I felt strange, because I didn't want To Let him go, so much so that the Last Words he said to me: 'Emmanuel , I really have to go. 'It Now feels As If his fate was already written, and the life, allows us to Say Goodbye , The Last embrace was perhaps The Most intense of our lives. I wanted to hug him, Forever . "

The Following morning, Emmanuel had Reached Bogotá, and waited for his connection to Medellín, as he Saw in the news that Back Home in Genoa, The Bridge collapsed.

Emmanuel Diaz "I immediately had the feeling that something was wrong. There is a special bond Between Brothers . I Saw a picture of my brother Henry and I thought, 'Why do I feel like You 're so Far Away ?' I have the feeling that he is no longer with me.

"When I was in Medellin, I tried to call him, calls our friends, our mother in Italy, but I felt powerless. I was almost 14,000 km. So I looked at the news online, search for updates. We had a yellow car, very pronounced. I just started a Facebook live stream and I Saw the moment she moved to our yellow car out of the rubble. In that moment, I understood that my brother was Dead . I looked at the picture of The Car and I thought, 'no One can have survived in this car, it is possible. 'I fell to the ground, I lost the strength in my legs, I collapsed. "

Deputy Prosecutor Paolo D'ovidio just come back from his vacation and his cell phone was left at home. He rang his wife To Let her know, and she told him to switch on the news.

"they said, 'Look, something the Morandi Bridge happened. "I went online and The First pictures looked. I rushed home to my phone, then went with The Police to the place. We arrived within an hour of the collapse. It's firefighters, police officers, paramedics and journalists. It was raining.

"I've seen so much despair. I can't say it was bad. There were people, screaming, shouting, dogs search for bodies, the dogs, the be on the lookout for those who are still alive. And all the pieces of The Bridge , all the parts of The Road that had fallen were on other streets. It warehouses were destroyed by the 50m-60m of The Road was like. There a truck was hanging 50m is locked up on the ground with The Driver .

"immediately, it was clear that, as well as the rescue of The Survivors , there was an immediate need to understand what had happened, and The Investigation started from there. "

One of The First eyewitnesses, Davide Capello, was driving his Volkswagen Tiguan over The Bridge . He was halfway When he heard a dull metallic sound.

"There was no Bang, there was an explosion. It seemed like something made of steel had broken. A crack, As If something burst. For a few seconds, I was stunned. I could not find where the noise came from. Then I Saw , to collapse everything in front of me began. I Saw The Cars in front of me disappear and parts of The Road fall.

Davide Capello ", which I have on brakes to try to stop The Car before I ran out of road. But I didn't make it. I felt disappearance of The Road under me, and my car nosedived into The Void . I leave the steering wheel and put my hands behind my head. I screamed, 'I'm Dead , I'm Dead , I'm Dead . "It was a very strange feeling - it happened so fast that I had no time to be afraid. All I had was a feeling of powerlessness was felt. Wait for it all to end.

"I had the good fortune to land the debris in a pile. I remember beating it with the back of The Car . There was a loud crash to me was around. It's all noise and dust, As If a rocket hits The Bridge met. I was in The Car for about 20 Minutes , because I was afraid to Get Out , I was stuck. As I got out, I looked around me and all I Saw was rubble, crushed cars, people in the interior of The Car . It was an unreal silence, an unnatural silence. It was like A War scene. "

Thirty meters below The Bridge , Mimma, Certo has been in your family is on the third floor flat if she heard a strange metallic sound.

"I was in the shower. I Heard the sound like thunder that seemed to last Forever . Like something hitting the iron. And I couldn't figure out whether it was a truck that had fallen on the railway. Then I began to hear people rush in to scream on The Street and votes.

"I opened The Window , and I Saw all these cars in The River , with its headlights still, and I looked up and Saw the stump of The Bridge . That's When I froze. I Packed my bags and shoes and ran. I rang the doorbell, My Sister , and I took a photo, because it was impossible to explain what had happened. No One would believe it. "

Mimma's sister, Anna Rita, was at work. Now in their 60s, The Sisters were children When The Bridge was built over The Top of your apartment block, back in the 1960s.

"We Saw him grow. We played including. When The President came to Open It , we have the feeling that we lived in an architectural masterpiece. It was a sign that it is growing in Italy.

"Saw As I do, the photo of the collapse, I felt like I was cheated. Because The Bridge was a presence since My Childhood . It was like discovering that your Best Friend is a murderer. "

civil engineer, Prof Carmelo Gentile was on vacation More Than 1,000 Miles Away in Greece, because he received a text message from his brother to say, The Bridge had collapsed.

"My wife said to me, I sat in utter silence for 20 Minutes , after I have read that the SMS message. It is hard to describe what was going on in my head," he says.

Carmelo Gentile in autumn, the fall, Gentile and his team at the Milan Polytechnic, The Bridge was tested in the preparation for a EUR 26m project to strengthen the pylon, which eventually failed. The reinforcement of the work was due to start, only a month after The Bridge collapsed.

"We use sensors, and of The Vibrations we are measuring changes in distance are detected, what information rigidity and the health of The Bridge . What emerged was that the part of The Bridge , which later collapsed, had a very significant anomalies.

"If an engineer sees something out of the ordinary - in this case, a wave form was very strange and outside the normal measurements, You need to perform in order to open a more in-depth tests, the structure and go and see what is going on inside. You must do this as soon as possible. "

The Morandi Bridge before the collapse Autostrade, the private company that managed The Bridge , says it has been constantly monitored and are subject to frequent routine inspections, and that none of the various types of monitoring that ever indicated there was a need for "an immediate or urgent intervention. "

Gentile sent his report to SPEA engineering, which is a subsidiary of Autostrade, the parent company of the company and performs work for the highway Autostrade.

"If You would have asked me to carry out further tests, I would probably have seen that there was a problem," Gentile says. "Probably as soon as I had installed the monitoring system, I would have The Situation realized had deteriorated since The Last test. In this case, I could have written, called a judge, and, armed with objective data, the closure of The Bridge for safety reasons. "

learn more

download

Deputy Prosecutor Paolo D'ovidio and his team have collected evidence, which they presented to a judge in custody hearings. About 80 people, from senior managers, engineers and technicians. examine

D'ovidio not so far if not more are going to say, Autostrade knew that The Bridge will collapse, but he thinks it is possible it was a "criminal under-rating The Risk ",.

"Our evidence is The State of the debris and the documents we have seized," he says.

Paolo d'ovidio Autostrade says that The Bridge was the subject of a constant maintenance, which was carried out as a result of the monitoring, and that this work cost €9m in the three years before The Bridge collapsed.

But D'ovidio and his team want to know why the privatized Autostrade waited to amplify so long, the pylon that collapsed. The Other two pylons were strengthened. in the early 1990s, When the motorway Autostrade was still in the possession of The Italian state At the time, Prof Carmelo Gentile was One of those working on The Project and he is experiencing some troubling evidence of decline.

"the condition of The Bridge was very bad. It was a miracle that it had not taken place as the year before. It might happen three, five, even 10 years," he says.

italy, genoa, italy bridge collapse, long reads, engineering

Source of news: bbc.com