Has sadly now a new renown
Its busy A10 motorway
Hit the headlines yesterday.
Swathed in heavy rain and mist
Its bridge* falls into the abyss
Built in the Sixties, much repaired
Engineers were running scared...
Concrete structure, stanchions bold
Suddenly just could not hold
The traffic: lorries, cars and vans
Which daily cross its immense spans...
A tremor, shock and down it goes
What happened? So far, no one knows
Death comes to many at the scene
Crushed lives, lost to the might-have-been.
The blame game hasn't started yet
Fire Services work in the wet
Some badly injured are dug out
All ears attuned to desperate shout...
But colossal sections breed despair
Metal girders spike the air
Time to pause and mourn the dead
And remember, life hangs by a thread...
(c) Poet in the woods 2018
* The cable-stayed Morandi bridge was inaugurated on 4th September, 1967.
It collapsed on 14th August, 2018, causing the death of 43 people.
It was re-opened on 2nd August, 2020.
Thanks for finding the words to express the horror and suddenness of this sad, sad tragedy.
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