There was a time in Italy when the name Riccardo Morandi sounded like the promise of modernity and motorization. It was a proud name that could be peddled abroad. Morandi (1902 to 1989) was a world-famous Roman civil engineer, an avant-garde, his road bridges revolutionized traffic. But now his name suddenly comes up in connection with major and medium-sized catastrophes for which he can do nothing. After his imposing work in Genoa, the “Ponte Morandi” over the Polcevera River, which collapsed in August 2018 due to dramatically inadequate maintenance work and killed 43 people, the “Ponte Morandi” of Catanzaro in Calabria is now also the talk of the town guessed, the largest arch bridge in Italy: because of unscrupulous, mafia-like construction companies and their “mess” with cheap mortar.
The bridge in Catanzaro is actually called Viadotto Fausto Bisanti, like a former senator who once campaigned for it. But in Calabria the name “Ponte Morandi” has become common. The bridge became the symbol of the city: 112 meters high, 468 meters long – it connects Catanzaro with the SS280 in a single arch over a gorge, which is also called “Strada Statale dei Due Mari” because it connects Tyrrhenian with Ionian Sea connects. The bridge was completed in 1962, which was a sensation at the time. Before the inauguration, they had been loaded with heavy loads so that the people could assure themselves of their carrying capacity. Thousands of onlookers came.
In 2017 it should be overhauled again, time and weather had damaged the concrete. The contract went to a construction company in the area, which, as we now know, was founded by two entrepreneurs who managed everything in the background, but did not want to appear as owners. They registered the company Tank under the name of their secretary because their own names had already appeared in previous judicial operations against the Calabrian mafia – and because they intended to earn as much as possible from the maintenance work on the bridge. No matter how.
Tapped phone calls
What they didn’t know: The financial police tapped their phones and overheard the men talking to each other and to the site manager about the poor quality of the concrete mortar. The material, they said, was a “porcata”, a mess. “We used this material for the ‘Morandi’, so everything collapses.”
The Catanzaro Public Prosecutor’s Office has now arrested the two entrepreneurs and their secretary. They are accused of, among other things, fraud, corruption and belonging to a criminal organization of the Mafia type. An inspector from the Guardia di Finanza was also arrested, who had informed the gang of the progress of the investigation and was paid to do so. An engineer from the Autobahn Company and a surveyor have been suspended from duty. And the bridge was confiscated, but it remains open to traffic. The state operating company Anas asserts that the statics are in order, everything is solid and that the necessary correction work can also be carried out without blocking. And so the traffic continues to roll over the Ponte Morandi from Catanzaro, only that the drivers may not be as thoughtless as they were before.