At least 22 people have died when a motorway bridge collapsed in Genoa, Italy, and the death toll will rise, Italian Deputy Transport Minister Edoardo Rixi says.
"It's not acceptable that such an important bridge... was not built to avoid this kind of collapse," Rixi said on Tuesday on SkyNews24, speaking from Genoa. "The central section came down."
Italian television showed images of the collapsed bridge, which was built on the A10 toll motorway in the 1960s. Restructuring work on the bridge was carried out in 2016.
The private broadcaster Sky TG24 said a 200-metre section of the Morandi Bridge collapsed over an industrial zone.
Amalia Tedeschi, a firefighter, told RAI state TV some 20 vehicles had been involved in Tuesday's collapse.
She said two people had been pulled alive from vehicles in the rubble that fell into an industrial area below the bridge and were being transported by helicopter to a hospital.
IMaria Luisa Catalano, a police official in Genoa, said authorities were focused on rescue efforts and did not yet know the number of victims or injured.
Firefighters told The Associated Press they were worried about gas lines exploding in the area from the collapse.
Video captured the sound of a man screaming: "Oh God! Oh, God!" Other images showed a green truck that had stopped just short of the gaping hole in the bridge. The tyres of a tractor trailer could be seen in the rubble.
Italy's Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli called the collapse "an enormous tragedy".
Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said about 200 firefighters were responding to the accident.
"We are following minute by minute the situation of the bridge collapse in Genoa," Salvini said on Twitter.
The disaster occurred on a highway that connects Italy to France and other vacation resorts on the eve of a major Italian holiday on Wednesday, Ferragosto.
The Morandi Bridge is a main thoroughfare connecting the A10 highway that goes toward France and the A7 highway that continues north toward Milan.
ANSA said authorities suspected that a structural weakness caused the collapse.
Australian Associated Press
