Overpass of the massacre “the inertia of the Municipality of Venice continued even in the activities that followed after the accident on 3 October 2023”. The j’accuse of is very serious Placido Migliorinoengineer and manager of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport to whom the prosecutor’s office has entrusted the task of submitting to X-ray” the building where the La Linea electric bus crashed, causing the twenty-two people killed and fourteen injured. Over two hundred pages of expertise which with the attachments reaches 1,073: from creation to expertise on the artefact through the precise analysis of the accident area. «It is noted, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the common it had already been there since the early 2000s awareness on the urgent and non-deferrable need to carry out the jobs of redevelopment of the barriers – accuses the consultant – The Municipality has proven itself deaf at reports of prejudice to the safety of traffic which had been received by the subjects in various capacities involved in the proceedings”. One, for example, was in 2021 when Public Works were affected «as part of a investigation delegated by the prosecutor’s office” on roads, including the Marghera flyover. At the time, one was delivered relation which makes no mention of barriers. Yet, the expert notes, the highway code has been in place since 2004 provides that guardrails are also taken into consideration.
Reports and responses from the Municipality
But there’s more. In the aftermath of the tragedy, October 4th, there was the inspection of the National Agency for Railway and Infrastructure Safety (Ansfisa): the immediate request was made for the administration to respond within five days. Ansfida wrote: «We require the sending of evidence (…) of the implementation of assessment, management And mitigation of the risks also in consideration of the high volumes Of traffic (compared to 1970, cars increased by 560%, trucks by 752%, ed.) pending an overall redevelopment of the entire road trunk.” Two le replies, on 20 and 23 October. For Migliorino, inadequate: «One cannot fail to highlight the generic and substantial nature inconsistency of the answer.” In which it was underlined that interventions were planned, currently underway: they will be finished in seven months and there will be new guardrails.
«Still today the same conditions as the day of the accident»
«(The Municipality, ed.) simply acknowledges the criticality highlighted by communicating that it will proceed to install new jersey – continues the expert -. The consequence of this attitude, inadequate to guarantee and monitor safety, is that even today, as far as is known, vehicular traffic takes place almost in same risk conditions similar to those that occurred on the day of the accident”. So the thrust, «the Municipality continues to ignore there need to adopt adequate and decisive measures interventions of risk mitigation, not only for the barrier installed on the right edge, but also for the one on the left, as well as on all the barriers at the Marghera road junction”. Beyond technicalities, Migliorino puts it in black and white that the entire road axis that connects the mainland to the ring road and the motorway needs maintenance. To tell the truth, in recent days the Municipality has entrusted the contract for the safety of the connection towards Marghera and feasibility studies have also been drawn up for three other flyovers in the area: 107 million euros of works, to be financed.
There shouldn’t have been any gaps in the guardrails
Migliorino, in reality, doesn’t even save Anas (he built the infrastructure, then the documents reveal that its management passed to the Municipality in 1974, an attribution confirmed by the resolutions of 2012 and 2013) and Cav That they wouldn’t have «intended to verify the continuation of adequate standards of safety». Furthermore, the two bodies “had the possibility, provided for by the regulations, to intervene to make the infrastructure safe as it was part of the motorway supply system”.
Then looking at pastthe consultant (armed by documents from the 1960s) points out that i gates which will soon be closed by the new guardrails they shouldn’t have been there: «Barriers were foreseen without any discontinuity» already in 1967. When their maintenance was already «mandatory». In this scenario, the fact that the pin of the bus’s steering wheel has “fractured” produced a slowdown of the vehicle (from 55 to 30 kilometers per hour) and the barrier “despite the critical issues highlighted, it allowed the vehicle to be contained and redirected, preventing it from falling from the viaduct”. The vehicle arrived at the end of the first section of the overpass “without serious consequences”, but then it found a gap of 2.40 meters «without protection».
