Video shows bridge collapse after storms in Italy. © Angelo Bonelli Facebook
The floods in Italy have consequences. An important road bridge in Calabria collapsed. A politician posted the video on Facebook and used it for a side blow.
Rome/Longobucco in Cosentino - Heavy rainfall caused flooding in Italy at the beginning of May, especially in Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy. But there were also downpours in the south. In Calabria, a bridge on the Sila Mare Strait was washed out. This is an important connection between the west coast (Tyrrhenian Sea), the toe of the boot of the Italian peninsula, and the east coast (Ionian Sea). Near the village of Longobucco in Cosentino, the bridge over the river Trionto collapsed. The otherwise tranquil river had swelled into a raging torrent.
Violent storms in Italy: Bridge collapses in front of the camera
No one was injured as the bridge was closed in time. Nevertheless, the collapse of the bridge has political consequences: The Green politician Angelo Bonelli has posted a video of the collapse on his Facebook page - and shares against the Minister of Infrastructure Matteo Salvini of the right-wing Lega: "Matteo Salvini wants to waste 15 billion euros to build a useless and harmful structure like the bridge over the Strait of Messina, while Italy is sinking and the bridges are collapsing. This policy is a crime against the environment and the money of the Italians," said Bonelli, spokesman for the Europa Verde party.
Salvini, who is also deputy head of government under Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of the post-fascist Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy) party, announced in February the construction of a bridge from the mainland in Calabria to Sicily. Salvini praised the 3.6-kilometer planned bridge as "the largest public structure on the European continent in this century, the dream of millions of Italians for centuries." However, scientists warn of earthquakes in the Strait of Messina with a magnitude of up to 7.1 and wind speeds of up to 270 kilometers per hour. For comparison, the earthquake in Haiti in 2021 had an amplitude of 7.2, there were 2200 deaths.
Even under Berlusconi, Italy's mega-bridge to Sicily failed
At the beginning of the 2000s, the then Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was already planning the mega bridge to Sicily - the project was buried at the time precisely because of the risk of earthquakes. At the same time, accidents such as the collapse of the Genoa motorway bridge in 2018 with 48 fatalities have already shown how desolate the Italian infrastructure is in some cases. And now the bridge over the Trionto collapsed.
On Monday, a coach crashed on the Amalfi Coast and crashed into a house. The driver did not survive the accident.