Genoa bridge collapse: Creaking noises prompt alarm among rescue workers as residents told to stop retrieving belongings

Prosecutors are investigating faulty maintenance and design as possible causes of disaster, with preliminary inspections suggesting there were yet more contributing factors

Residents have been ordered to stop retrieving their belongings from homes beneath the bridge in Genoa which killed 43 people when it collapsed last week after workers heard creaking noises coming from the remaining parts of the structure.

An operation had been underway to allow the 600 people living in buildings under another section of the bridge to briefly return to their homes in the northern Italian city, although work to clear debris has continued after rescue crews announced all of the missing people have been accounted for.

Officials ruled out the possibility that the sound was caused by wind and announced that checks were underway, the news agency ANSA reported on Monday.

A large section of the Morandi highway bridge collapsed on Tuesday during a fierce storm which brought heavy downpours, killing 43 people and forcing the evacuation of more than 600 from the densely populated area.

Prosecutors are investigating faulty maintenance and design as possible causes of the disaster, with preliminary inspections suggesting there were yet more contributing factors – not just a simple collapse of the bridge support.

Engineering experts determined in February that corrosion of the metal cables supporting the Genoa highway bridge had reduced the bridge’s strength by 20 per cent – a finding that came months before it collapsed, an Italian news magazine reported on Monday.

Despite the findings, Espresso wrote that “neither the ministry, nor the highway company, ever considered it necessary to limit traffic, divert heavy trucks, reduce the roadway from two to one lanes or reduce the speed” of vehicles on the key artery for the northern port city.

It has also emerged that the engineer who designed the bridge, Riccardo Morandi, warned it would require constant maintenance to remove rust in a written report 12 years after it was inaugurated in his name.

Mr Morandi wrote that although the reinforced concrete bridge was technically sound there was a “well known loss of superficial chemical resistance of the concrete” because of sea air and pollution from a nearby steel plant.

It has been reported that the head of the government team, Roberto Ferrazza, was one of the engineers who knew that there had been advanced corrosion on the key bridge support that gave way.

He had attended a meeting in February this year where he recommended that the supports be reinforced, given the “trend of degradation”, and had signed off on the tendering of an £18m public works contract to repair the bridge.

On Sunday, dozens of Genoese residents gathered in a central piazza to vent rage and pain over the collapse after many families boycotted the state funeral for 18 of the victims on Saturday.

Nine people are still in hospital with four in a critical condition after a 200-metre section of the Morandi bridge gave way in busy traffic, plunging vehicles and debris to the ground 50 metres below.

All those listed as missing had now been accounted for, but crews will continue to search just in case, fire brigade official Stefano Zanut told Sky TG24.

“We won’t stop. Our work continues in order to have the full certainty that nobody has been left under the rubble,” he said.

The viaduct was part of the A10 motorway linking the Italian port city with the French border to the west and was managed by toll-road operator Autostrade per l’Italia, a division of infrastructure group Atlantia.

Shares in Atlantia fell 22.5 per cent last week and the pre-opening price this week indicated they could soon fall another 2 per cent to €17.5 (£16).

Autostrade pledged half a billion euros on Saturday to rebuild the bridge and set up funds to immediately assist the families of the victims and those displaced from their homes.

The government has also allocated around £28m. “Now we expect things to move fast and that people [who had to leave their homes] are given a place to stay,” Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte posted on Facebook.

The head of the regional government, Giovanni Toti, said the first temporary homes would be delivered on Monday and that all those who had to leave their apartments close to the bridge would be accommodated within the next two months in 300 houses slated to be made available.

A government plan aimed at making Italy’s infrastructure safer will be launched next month, with motorways, bridges, viaducts and public buildings such as schools set to be reviewed.

Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report