Genoa, on the morning of August 14, had woken up in a heavy and compact rain, which in these parts never brings good.
The roar that at 11.36 tore through the city canceled everything
: the
collapse of the Morandi Bridge
submerged the sound of thunder, the horns of cars lined up in the traffic of August 15th, the thousand voices of a city that now looks without words at the gash that is is open in the belly of Sampierdarena.
A few hundred meters away, towards the sea, is the Italsider area, where there was the cocheria and people opened their windows and removed the coal dust.
On the other side, towards the hill, Bolzaneto and the bad memories of the G8.
In the middle, the Polcevera, the only stream in Genoa that has not been buried.
When it rains it is not him who worries, but Fereggiano, who has already killed him, or Bisagno.
The Morandi bridge was over a kilometer long, with three reinforced concrete pylons to support it
: more than two hundred came down, dragging the central pylon along with it.
Looking at them now, the two-meter-thick concrete beams broken and crumbled, with the steel rods sticking out twisted, one wonders how this was possible.
On the right side, the one that passes over the railway, an entire piece of bridge twenty meters long has collapsed between the tracks and a building.
Fifty meters away, on the other side of the railway, the public houses of Sampierdarena were miraculously spared.
Five-storey condominiums where hundreds of people, Italians and immigrants live.
Marco is one of those who lives under the bridge, he raises his eyes and looks right above him at the piece of reinforced concrete that has remained suspended, attached to the steel tie rods.
"What did I hear? He looked like the world was collapsing."
On the left side of the Polcevera there is the 'Bic', the Business Innovation Center, an agglomeration of small businesses that never really took off.
The last thing left standing is the 'Nuova neon Finetti: when the bridge gave way, the cement spared one of the most important Italian companies, Ansaldo Energia, for a few meters, crashing down on the sheds of the' Fabbrica del Riciclo ' and, above all, the Amiu deposit.
Above those sheds were passing Eugenio and Natasha.
"It was raining a lot, you couldn't see anything - the girl told the fire brigade - at a certain point we slipped down. I didn't understand anything anymore".
The firefighters explained it to him: the car rolled over and was crushed under a piece of concrete.
They are alive by a miracle.
"A car remained hanging from the steel cables - says Bruno Guida, another firefighter who stopped only at 7 pm - We got down from above and pulled out a man who is still alive, I don't even know how it was. possible".
