Deadly collapse in Italy turns spotlight onto aging bridges around the world

“It is really sad. I knew that bridge, I passed across that bridge a few times. It was a famous bridge for Italian engineering,” says Matteo Pozzi, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Carnegie Mellon University.

The bridge, Pozzi explains, was built by Riccardo Morandi, a civil engineer, whose designs in the 1960s were somewhat pioneering as they used reinforced concrete instead of the more expensive steel more commonly used at the time. Pozzi says that over the years people learned more about problems with the concrete of the bridge, and how it could deteriorate over time, “but it was still a landmark for Genoa.”
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