Italy bridge: Genoa motorway collapse kills at least 22

[NJmike PE]

Italian Bridge Collapse

A motorway bridge has collapsed near the northwest Italian city of Genoa, sending vehicles plummeting up to 90m (295ft) to the ground and killing at least 22 people, officials say.

It fell around 11:30 local time (09:30 GMT) during heavy rain. Police reported a violent cloudburst.

"It was just after 11:30 when we saw lightning strike the bridge," eyewitness Pietro M all'Asa was quoted as saying by Italy's Ansa news agency. "And we saw the bridge going down."

 

[Supe]

Just came here to post this.  Very sad, and will be very interested to find out what influence the lightning strike had, if any.  I can't imagine what it must have felt like to be one of those drivers falling all that way  

 

[tj_PE]

at first i was reading that it collapsed during "heavy rain" and i was like uhh...how heavy is this rain? Then continued that they were doing repair work and shoring the foundation, *and* the lightning strike, gives a few more reasonable conditions that could have contributed to the collapse. 

Then I see people standing and observing, with umbrellas, after a bridge nearby just got struck with lightning. 

Overall Terrifying, and even being one of the cars that didn't fall, hanging out there right at the end of the still standing section like that truck? yikes.  

 

[NJmike PE]

yeah, until reading this particular article I had not heard that lightning had any influence. very sad

 

[RBHeadge PE]

I really wouldn't want to be a driver/passenger on the bridge when the accident occurred. Nor anyone on the ground nearby. That's just scary.

If they were doing maintenance on the bridge, including support work, then the root cause may end up being "mundane". The lightning seems like a red herring. I read a conference paper about 10 years that provided an example of a case in Pennsylvania where lightning caused (either seismic or UT, can't remember) detectable anomaly in the concrete support of a bridge. They concluded though that the anomaly had no noticeable effect on the structural integrity of the bridge. The paper was really about a new technique they were using to NDT active bridges and compared the results with the results from existing practices. The lightning strike was just speaking to the sensitivity of their measurements.

It makes sense to me that the path of the electrons could cause some disruptions in the concrete matrix similar to beta particle damage to certain polymers. But I just don't see a single lighting strike causing appreciable radiation damage to concrete supports that thick - just not enough energy. But I'm just a dumb Nuke E, so I can't speak to the other ways lightning could damage a huge structure like that bridge.

 

[Supe]

I can see how lightning could cause an appreciable temperature spike which could lead to spalling of the concrete, but it also could have struck/disabled a piece of equipment being used by the maintenance people.  As noted, it's entirely possible that it's just coincidental timing, though.