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    #26
    It's the third motorway bridge collapse in Italy in the last two years
    Fourth, according to this.

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      #27
      hasn't that sort of thing been a feature of Italian motorway infrastructure from the start?

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        #28
        About one a year recently

        About 12 other bridges and overpasses have collapsed in Italy since 2004, killing seven people between them. In early 2015 a €13m viaduct in Palermo collapsed within days of opening. Poor structural maintenance was identified as the cause in most of the cases.
        Asto M5S, while I’m sure that they have a handful of deep ecology supporters (particularly in the Val Susa), the real numbers are in the NIMBY and “they are all thieves” camps.

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          #29
          Oh i am sure that if the philosophical bone is ecology, the meat is very much more what you describe Ursus. The langage used to push away concerns is that of denialism, present in so much of those idiots 'movimento'...

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            #30
            The engineers are very concerned that the apartment buildings under the parts of the span that are still intact are at risk, and have required 311 families to evacuate.

            It is unclear when (or if) they will be able to return.

            EIM, it seems that initial reports of the earthquake were over-hyped. It was "only" a 4.7 and felt primarily in Molise, Abruzzo and Campania.

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              #31

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                #32
                That symbolism needs parsing for me, Ursus

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                  #33
                  Genoa and Sampdoria supporters standing together to try to bridge the chasm that has been torn in the heart of their city

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                    #34
                    Striking series of 15 photographs from Corriere

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                      #35
                      Thanks Ursus I wondered if there were political colours or individuals being caricatured I didn’t recognise

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                        #36
                        A report on CBC this morning stated that Italy has the second highest budget in Europe for bridge and highway maintenance — after Norway — but has the worst record for project completions.

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                          #37
                          Unsurprising

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                            #38
                            https://twitter.com/GianlucaSgueo/status/1028520216832225280

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                              #39
                              Heh, that doesn't require a paper. Italy's current macro-economic problems are entirely down to the accumulated effects of not collecting enough tax to cover their level of spending. Italy would still have loads of problems, but if they did that alone, Italy would be a completely different country, but that would require Italy to be a completely different country anyway.

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                                #40
                                I quite honestly cannot imagine how Italy would transform itself into a country that paid taxes.

                                It's rather like imagining a Protestant Italy. It just ain't going to happen.

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                                  #41
                                  It's all so *jolly*.

                                  https://twitter.com/KelvinD/status/1029477889698357248

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                                    #42
                                    Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                                    I quite honestly cannot imagine how Italy would transform itself into a country that paid taxes.

                                    It's rather like imagining a Protestant Italy. It just ain't going to happen.
                                    It's not an issue of being a country that pays taxes or not. This is activity that takes place at the margin. Loads of Italians pay a load of tax. Italy has one of the highest Tax to GDP takes in the EU. You just need the ones who avoid it to pay a little bit more of what they owe. They can still avoid a load of it. You just want them to make more of an effort. I mean You could have said the same about ireland in the 1980's, when our black economy would have considered Italy a worthy but unwieldy rival. But we had to go Bankrupt under the old rules to change anything. We had also reached a point where the PAYE workers, who were paying marginal rates of up to 85% were going to start burning out farmers and small businessmen.

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                                      #43
                                      Two things:

                                      1. Homes being evacuated - from the subsequent pictures of the catastrophe, it's clear that there's not just housing that could be flattened if the bridge collapsed sideways (you get that everywhere), but housing a few metres directly beneath the bridge deck. What the actual hell? I'd be here all day if I started listing the different reasons why this a shocking idea.

                                      2. Tom Bradby is a fucking imbecile.

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                                        #44
                                        There is at least one apartment building where a substantial piece of fallen roadway is leaning on the roof

                                        Massively unsurprising and even more depressing (from the FT, and therefore pasted in full)

                                        Italian transport ministry officials were warned of weaknesses in Morandi bridge in Genoa, six months before the viaduct collapsed last week, killing 43 people.

                                        Some of the stays supporting the bridge were estimated to have lost 20 per cent of their resistance capacity and needed repair, according to a study by Autostrade per l’Italia, the country’s biggest motorway toll company. On Monday, the transport ministry, Autostrada and the architect tasked with investigating the collapse confirmed that the findings had been discussed by civil servants in February.

                                        The revelation that the government knew of weaknesses in the bridge will undermine efforts by the populist coalition’s attempts to pin blame for the disaster squarely on Autostrade and its parent company Atlantia.

                                        The government, which took power in May, told Autostrada that it intended to revoke its licence to operate about half of Italy’s toll motorways, and refused an initial offer by the company of €500m for repairs and compensation. The price of shares in Atlantia fell as much as 9 per cent on Monday.

                                        The objectivity of the official investigation by the transport ministry into the collapse has also been questioned after it emerged that the ministry appointed the same official who assessed the Autostrade proposals to head the ministry’s investigation into the accident.

                                        Roberto Ferrazza, a transport ministry architect in Genoa, was part of a provincial board overseeing public works. He said he assessed the project proposed by Autostrade to carry out maintenance and repair works on the bridge in February this year. Last week he was appointed to lead the ministry’s investigation into the collapse.

                                        On Monday, Mr Ferrazza told the Financial Times that he would not step down as head of the investigation team. “I don’t see a conflict of interest,” he said. Whether he continued to head the investigation “is not my decision”, he added. “I was appointed.”

                                        Mr Ferrazza said on Monday that the Autostrade report quoted “at length” from a survey by the Politecnico University in Milan in October last year, which stated that corrosion meant that “parts of the bridge were 10 to 20 per cent down in resistance capacity”. “This was the main reason for the works,” he said.

                                        He said the board gave the proposed maintenance and repair work a “favourable” review but asked for further information about the flaws in the bridge.

                                        The officials made sure their assessment was completed quickly, he said. “We had it for a short time, a few weeks, then we sent it to the ministry in Rome for final approval so the works could get started as soon as possible,” he said. The project was approved by the ministry and a tender for €20m to carry out the work was advertised in May.

                                        Despite the warnings, officials did not stop or limit traffic on the bridge in the six months between the meeting and the collapse.

                                        A spokesman for the ministry confirmed it had assessed and approved the Autostrade works, but said it had no further comment to make.

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                                          #45
                                          The new one is open already. Is that the fastest ever building project in Italian history?

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                                            #46
                                            https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-53628580

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