Former goalkeeper survives fall from collapsed Genoa bridge
At least 37 dead amid apocalyptic scenes; government vows action on operator
ROME A former goalkeeper for Italian Serie A club Cagliari survived the deadly collapse of the motorway viaduct in Genoa on Tuesday despite going down with the bridge in his car and ending up among the rubble.
Mr Davide Capello, who made two appearances for the Sardinian side while they were in Serie B early last decade and who is now a firefighter, managed to walk away after 200m of the Morandi viaduct crumbled at around midday.
The collapsed section was 50m high.
"I was driving along the bridge and at a certain point, I saw the road in front of me collapse, and I went down with the car," Mr Capello told TV news channel Sky TG24.
Mr Capello, however, managed to clamber out of his car, which he said was "attached to a pylon", and climb down the rubble to the police and firefighters waiting below.
"I was able to get out... I don't know how my car wasn't crushed. It seemed like a scene from a film, it was the apocalypse," the shaken 33-year-old told AFP.
"I was convinced it was going to end badly, but thank God I have lived to tell the tale."
Since leaving Cagliari in 2005 after a season as their third choice goalkeeper in Serie A, Sardinia-born Capello eventually left professional football.
Another motorist told RAI state radio he had been in a traffic jam and seen the collapse: "Suddenly the bridge came down with everything it was carrying. It was really an apocalyptic scene, I couldn't believe my eyes."
Rescuers searched for survivors amid the debris of Italy's bridge collapse yesterday as the death toll climbed to 37 and the government blamed the bridge's operator, demanding resignations and moving to strip its toll concession, Reuters reported.
The 50-year-old bridge, part of a toll motorway linking the port city of Genoa with southern France, collapsed during torrential rain on Tuesday.
A witness evacuated on Tuesday from a nearby building where he works, described the collapse as unbelievable.
"To see a pylon come down like papier-mache is an incredible thing," he said.
"We have known there were problems. It is in continual maintenance. In the 90s they added some reinforcements on one part, but also underneath you can see rust."
As cranes moved in to shift lorry-size chunks of broken concrete, public shock and grief turned to anger over the state of the 1.2km-long bridge, completed in 1967 and overhauled two years ago.
Bridge operator Autostrade, a unit of Milan-listed Atlantia group, said it had carried out regular checks on the structure before the disaster.
Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said the private sector manager of the bridge had earned "billions" from tolls but "did not spend the money it was supposed to" and its concession should be revoked.
Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli said he had begun a process to strip Autostrade of its concession and demanded top managers resign.
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