No One Knows What to Do About Italy’s Deadly Bridges
A government engineer found crumbling viaducts that are putting lives at risk. Documents show there’s little he can do to close them.
Placido Migliorino has spent the last year on a mission to keep his fellow Italians out of danger.
The 60-year-old engineer’s job at the Transport Ministry is to roam the country checking highway bridges are as safe as their privately run operators say they are after the collapse of one in Genoa in August 2018 killed 43 people. He’s inspected more than 200, scaling the structures with special ladders and in lifts, and concluded that at least four ought to be closed or banned to heavy trucks.