</s>Genoa bridge collapse: Death toll rises to 43 as thousands attend state funeral for victims

Italy has mourned the victims of the collapse of a motorway bridge in the northern city of Genoa with a state funeral as rescue workers reportedly find four more bodies and a man dies in hospital, bringing the death toll to 43.

On Tuesday a 200-metre section of the Morandi bridge in Genoa gave way in busy lunchtime traffic, sending cars plummeting 45 metres into a dry river bed and near several apartment buildings.

The mass for 19 of the victims was held at the Exhibition and Trade Centre of the northern port city and led by the city's archbishop, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco.

"The initial disbelief and then the growing dimension of the catastrophe, the general bewilderment, the tumult of emotions, the pressing 'whys?' touched us yet again and in a brutal way showed the inexorable fragility of the human condition," Cardinal Bagnasco said.

He encouraged citizens to show solidarity so "we can build new bridges to walk together" and rise above the tragedy.

Cardinal Bagnasco told the mourners that Pope Francis had called him Friday evening to express closeness to all those suffering.

Among the coffins were those of two young Albanian Muslim men who lived and worked in Italy.

Their remains were blessed at the end of the Catholic service by a Genoa imam, who drew applause when he prayed for God to "protect Italy and all Italians".

But some of the victims' families boycotted the event and held their own private services, as a protest against the state, seen as negligent in its role of overseeing safety on the privately run bridge.

The Government had declared Saturday a national day of mourning and declared a state of emergency for Genoa, one of Italy's largest ports.

Hours before the funeral, the toll from Tuesday's bridge collapse rose unofficially to 43, with the reported discovery of four more bodies amid the tons of broken concrete.

The bodies of an Italian couple and their 9-year-old daughter were found in their smashed car under a big block of concrete, Italian news agency ANSA said.

Relatives said the family from northern Italy had been driving to catch a ferry for the island of Elba for their vacation.

Firefighter Stefano Zanut told Sky TG24 TV the last body pulled out of the wreckage was that of a young Italian man, an employee of Genoa's trash company, working under the bridge when it collapsed.

The man's mother had refused to leave a tent set up a few hundred yards away from the rubble until his body was found.

Italian RAI state radio said it is believed he is the last missing person after a German man called officials to say he was not involved in the disaster.

A Genoa hospital said 36-year-old Romanian truck driver Marian Rosca had succumbed to his severe cranial and chest injuries and died.

Doctors had described him as the most severely injured of the survivors, while authorities said several other bridge survivors are still hospitalised.



Before the ceremony began, in a pavilion on Genoa's fairgrounds, President Sergio Mattarella offered quiet words of comfort for families of the victims before taking his place with other Italian leaders, including Premier Giuseppe Conte and the transportation and infrastructure minister in the cavernous pavilion hall.

Mr Mattarella did not speak at the funeral, held on a national day of mourning, but after the ceremony ended he told reporters the bridge collapse "is an unacceptable tragedy".

He called the funeral "a moment of grief shared grief by all of Italy united in this state of mind".

He then demanded that "responsibility be ascertained with rigor" for the collapse of the bridge, which linked two major highways, one leading to Milan and the other toward France.

Members of the fire brigade, rescue teams and the police force were welcomed with applause as they entered the exhibition centre, where the caskets, including a small white one for a child, were lined up in front of a temporary altar.

Players of the city's two soccer teams, Genoa and Sampdoria, sat among the crowd, having refused to play matches this weekend in sign of respect.

Relatives of the dead stood beside the coffins, adorned with white and yellow roses, some with their hands on the caskets.

'You apologise if you feel you are responsible'

The disaster has dragged toll-road operator Autostrade per l'Italia (ASPI), controlled by infrastructure group Atlantia , into a political storm.

Speaking after the funeral, top Autostrade executives voiced profound sadness for the victims and said the company would set up a fund of about $780 million for their families.

Chief executive Giovanni Castellucci said the company has a plan to demolish what is left of the largely concrete bridge and build a "less imposing" steel one.

He said the process will take about eight months to complete.

When asked if he would issue an unreserved apology, Mr Castellucci stopped short of an apology:

Mr Castellucci added that he would wait for official investigators to determine responsibility for the collapse, but stated that all the bridges managed by the firm are safe.</s>The death toll of Genoa's bridge collapse has risen to 43 as rescuers confirm they found remains believed to be of a missing family.

 

 Firefighters discovered the three bodies, reported to be those of a couple and their nine-year-old daughter, early Sunday inside a car extracted from the rubble of the viaduct.

 

 All those reported missing after Tuesday's collapse have now been accounted for, although rescuers say they will continue combing the wreckage.

 

 The announcement followed the discovery Saturday of the body of a man in his 30s in the rubble and the death of another man in hospital.

 

 Italy observed a national day of mourning Saturday for the victims of the tragedy.

 

 Applause broke out at state funerals in Genoa as rescuers and members of the civil defense department arrived to take part in the service.

 

 Authorities used an exhibition center in the area of the Genoa fairgrounds as a church.

 

 Large screens were set up outside as Italians from all over the country and tourists turned out to follow the service. Many said they came out of solidarity with relatives of the victims because what happened could have happened to anyone.

 

 The archbishop of Genoa, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, presided over the solemn service. Italy's top officials and politicians, including head of state Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, attended.

But not all the families of the victims agreed to take part. Some decided to bury their dead relatives in their towns of origin, while others declined to participate in anger at having lost their loved ones in an accident that may have been caused by poor design or improper maintenance.

 

 President Sergio Mattarella, who visited the site of the disaster and the injured in the hospital before attending the service, has defined the bridge collapse as "absurd and frightening," saying the tragedy "struck not only Genoa but the whole nation."

 

 The government has set up a commission to investigate the causes of the bridge collapse. The disaster sparked a huge debate in Italy about the state of the country's infrastructure.

 

 Autostrade per l'Italia, the company that manages Italy's highway system, held a news conference Saturday in Genoa, maintaining it has always acted responsibly as the operator of the toll road. CEO Giovanni Castellucci said it was premature to respond to the government's plans to revoke the company's concession, but said his company could build a new bridge in eight months.

 

 The Morandi viaduct dates from the 1960s and has been riddled with structural problems for decades, leading to expensive maintenance and criticism from engineering experts.</s>GENOA, Italy >> The death toll from the collapse of a highway bridge in the Italian city of Genoa that is already confirmed to have claimed at least 38 lives will certainly rise, a senior official said Thursday.

“Unfortunately, the toll will increase, that’s inevitable” as rescuers continued to search tons of rubble for the missing, Interior Minister Matteo Salvini told reporters.

On Wednesday, Premier Giuseppe Conte told reporters that 39 people had died.

But on Thursday, the Genoa’s prefect office, which reports to the interior ministry lowered the number of confirmed dead to 38. Prefect Office official Raffaella Corsaro attributed the lowered number to a “misunderstanding” about information supplied by ambulance dispatchers.

Corsaro said that there are 15 injured persons. Doctors have said one of the injured is in coma with severe cranial injuries.

Rescuers continued to comb through tons of jagged steel, concrete and dozens of vehicles that plunged as much as 150 feet into a dry river bed on Tuesday, the eve of Italy’s main summer holiday.

Salvini declined to cite a number of the missing, saying that would be “supposition,” but separately Genoa Chief Prosecutor Francesco Cozzi told reporters there could be between 10 and 20 people still unaccounted for.

“The search and rescue operations will continue until we find all those people that are listed as missing,” Sonia Noci, a spokeswoman for Genoa firefighters, told The Associated Press.

Italy is planning a state funeral for the dead in the port city Saturday, which will be marked as a day of national mourning. The service will be held in a pavilion on the industrial city’s fair grounds and led by Genoa’s archbishop, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco.

Italian President Sergio Mattarella has said the collapse is an “absurd” catastrophe that has stricken the entire nation.

At least six of the dead are foreigners — four French citizens and two Albanians.

Authorities say they don’t know how many vehicles were on the bridge when it collapsed in a violent rain storm.

Cozzi has said the investigation of the cause is focusing on possible inadequate maintenance of the 1967 Morandi Bridge or possible design flaws.

In an interview on SkyTG24 TV Thursday, Cozzi said that there was a video of the collapse. Outside experts will study the video to see if it might help determine the cause.

Since the cause is yet to be ascertained, there are “no suspects” at this point, the prosecutor said. But he said prosecutors are considering possible eventual charges that include multiple manslaughter.

Premier Giuseppe Conte says his government won’t wait until prosecutors finish investigating the collapse to withdraw the concession from the main private company that maintains Italy’s highways, Atlantia.

The bridge links two heavily travelled highways, one leading to France, the other to Milan.

A $22.7 million project to upgrade the bridge’s safety had already been approved, with public bids to be submitted by September. According to business daily Il Sole, improvement work would have involved two weight-bearing columns that support the bridge — including one that collapsed Tuesday.

The bridge, considered innovative when it opened in 1967 for its use of concrete around its cables, was long due for an upgrade, especially since it carried more traffic than its designers had envisioned. Some architects have said the choice of encasing its cables in reinforced concrete was risky since it’s harder to detect corrosion of the metal cables inside.

Frances D’Emilio reported from Rome. Colleen Barry in Milan contributed to this report.</s>GENOA (Reuters) - Italy mourned the victims of the collapse of a motorway bridge in the northern city of Genoa with a state funeral on Saturday, as rescue workers kept searching for the last few unaccounted people buried in the rubble.

On Tuesday a 200-metre section of the Morandi bridge in Genoa gave way in busy lunchtime traffic, killing at least 38 people.

The mass for 19 of the victims was held at the Exhibition and Trade Centre of the northern port city and led by the city’s archbishop, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco.

But some of the victims’ families boycotted the event and held their own private services, as a protest against the state, seen as negligent in its role of overseeing safety on the privately run bridge.

A car was found on Saturday morning by rescue workers under slabs of concrete. The fire brigade and the Genoa prefecture said it was “compatible” with one believed to carry a family of three. But the official death toll has not yet been revised.

The government has declared Saturday a national day of mourning and declared a state of emergency for Genoa, one of Italy’s largest ports.

Members of the fire brigade, rescue teams and the police force were welcomed with applause as they entered the exhibition centre, where the caskets, including a small white one for a child, were lined up in front of a temporary altar.

“These things should not happen but unfortunately they still do. Now they’re looking for someone to blame but dead people cannot come back,” said Giuseppe Rondinelli, a friend of one of the victims, who was among the mourners.

Players of the city’s two soccer teams, Genoa and Sampdoria, sat among the crowd, having refused to play matches this weekend in sign of respect. Relatives of the dead stood beside the coffins, adorned with white and yellow roses, some with their hands on the caskets.

Albanian flags were draped over two caskets and the Chilean flag on two others. Another was covered with soccer memorabilia.

“The collapse of the bridge was a gash in the heart of Genoa, it’s a deep wound,” the archbishop said in his homily.

Italy’s head of state, President Sergio Mattarella, and Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte attended the ceremony as well as Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli.

A Genoa court will try to establish the exactly why the 51 year-old bridge collapsed, but experts said problems with concrete-encased cable stays were a possible cause.

The disaster has dragged toll-road operator Autostrade per l’Italia (ASPI), controlled by infrastructure group Atlantia, into a political storm. The firm manages the section of the A10 motorway linking Genoa to the French border.

“Now it is the time of grief.. but we must think about the conditions of the roads of our region and the security of our infrastructure because these victims cannot be followed by other victims,” Ilaria Caprioglio, the mayor of the town of Savona, said ahead of the ceremony.

Italy’s populist ruling coalition on Friday launched a formal procedure aimed at revoking concessions held by Autostrade to operate toll highways.

“Evidently someone did not do their job well in terms of ordinary and extraordinary maintenance. The concessionaire has faults that appear very grave,” Toninelli said in an interview with La Stampa, adding that it was up to investigators to establish who was responsible.

The Transport Ministry has given Autostrade 15 days to show it has met all its contractual obligations, failing which Rome could consider it in breach of the terms of its concessions.

Toninelli said he would deploy all necessary resources to avoid further disasters and said he was preparing contingencies in case the concessions were revoked.

Autostrade, which operates 3,000 km of motorways in Italy, said on Saturday it would hold a news conference in Genoa after the funerals, the company’s first public appearance since the disaster.

The group’s chairman and chief executive officer would outline initiatives to support victims’ families and those evacuated from their homes, as well as efforts to help traffic flow in the city, Autostrade added in a statement.</s>Genoa toll hits 43 as search for answers ramps up

The toll of Genoa's bridge collapse rose to 43 Sunday as rescuers confirmed they had found the remains believed to be of a missing family, a day after Italy held a funeral for the disaster victims.

The findings mean that all those reported missing after Tuesday's tragedy have now been accounted for, although rescuers said the would continue combing the wreckage.

"The bodies of the final three missing people were found overnight," Italy's fire service said on Twitter Sunday.

"The fire service is continuing its inspection of the area in order to rule out the eventual presence of people not reported missing."

The announcement followed the discovery Saturday of the body of a labourer in his 30s in the rubble and the death of another man in hospital.

The disaster has caused public outrage and unleashed a fierce debate over the state of Italy's infrastructure.

Rome has blamed the collapse on Autostrade per l'Italia, which manages almost half of the country's motorway network including the stricken A10 road.

The prosecutor investigating the bridge collapse has criticised past management of Italy's infrastructure.

Francesco Cozzi said the state had "abdicated" its responsibility to ensure road safety by handing motorway management to the private sector, in an interview published Sunday.

"The philosophy of our system today sees a state stripped of its powers, a sort of absent owner," he told the Corriere Della Sera newspaper.</s>GENOA: Italy's president demanded guarantees Saturday that all the nation's roads are safe following the Genoa highway bridge collapse, after he hugged and comforted mourners at a state funeral in the grieving port city.

President Sergio Mattarella spoke quietly to victims' families before the ceremony began on Genoa's fairgrounds. Usually reserved in demeanor, Mattarella was embraced tightly for a long moment by one distraught woman.

ALSO READ | Italian PM declares 12-month 'state of emergency' in Genoa after bridge collapse

He then took his place with other Italian leaders, including Premier Giuseppe Conte and the transportation minister, in the packed yet cavernous hall.

Afterward, Mattarella called the funeral, which took place on a day of national mourning, "a moment of grief, shared grief, by all of Italy."

One mourner, a local man who would only give his first name, Alessandro, held a placard that read: "In Italy, we prefer ribbon-cuttings to maintenance" — referring to the country's dilapidated infrastructure.

"These are mistakes that keep on repeating. And now, for the umpteenth time, angels have flown into heaven and paid for the mistakes of other human beings," Alessandro said.

As the city honored its dead, the toll from Tuesday's bridge collapse rose unofficially Saturday to 43 with the discovery of four more bodies in the rubble and the death in the hospital of the most severely injured survivor.

Firefighter Stefano Zanut told Sky TG24 TV they had extracted from tons of broken concrete the crushed car that an Italian couple on vacation with their 9-year-old daughter had been traveling in.

Zanut said the last body pulled out of the wreckage was that of a young Italian man, an employee of Genoa's trash company, who was working under the bridge when it collapsed. The man's mother had refused to leave a tent set up a few hundred yards away from the rubble until his body was found.

RAI state radio said authorities now believe there are no more missing in the tragedy.

Later, San Martino Hospital said a Romanian truck driver who had suffered severe cranial and chest injuries in the bridge collapse died Saturday evening.

The families of 19 victims their loved ones' coffins brought to the hall for the funeral Mass led by Genoa's archbishop, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, who said the tragedy "gashed the heart of Genoa."

ALSO READ | Death toll rises to 39 in Genoa bridge collapse

"The initial disbelief and then the growing dimension of the catastrophe, the general bewilderment, the tumult of emotions, the pressing "Whys?" have touched us yet again and in a brutal way showed the inexorable fragility of the human condition," he said.

Among the coffins were those of two young Albanian Muslim men who lived and worked in Italy. Their remains were blessed at the end of the Catholic service by a Genoa imam, who drew applause when he prayed for God to "protect Italy and all Italians."

Players and managers from the city's two major league soccer teams, Genoa and Sampdoria, also attended after their weekend matches were postponed out of respect for the dead.

At other bridge funerals on Friday, angry mourners blamed authorities of negligence and incompetence for failing to keep the bridge safe.

During the state funeral, applause rang out and many fought back tears Saturday as a prelate read out the first names of some 30 victims who have been identified. The mourners also applauded Italian firefighters, police and volunteers for the civil protection department as they arrived.

Mattarella toured what's left of the Morandi Bridge, which broke apart in a fierce rainstorm, sending a long stretch of roadbed crashing 45 meters (150 feet) into a dry river bed near several apartment buildings. Those buildings have been evacuated and authorities say they will have to be demolished.

After the funeral, Mattarella told reporters the bridge collapse "is an unacceptable tragedy." He demanded that "responsibility be ascertained with rigor" for the collapse of the bridge, which linked two major highways, one leading to Milan and the other toward France.

Prosecutors say they are focusing their probe on possible design flaws or inadequate maintenance of the highway bridge, which was completed in 1967.

"I, too, have traveled over this bridge many times," said Mattarella, demanding that authorities commit to carrying out their "duty to guarantee the safety of our roads."

Responding to harsh criticism, the Italian highway company in charge of the collapsed bridge offered Saturday to build a new bridge in eight months.

Giovanni Castellucci, CEO of Autostrade per l'Italia, the company that manages Italian highways and bridges, told reporters it has a plan to demolish what's left of the largely concrete 51-year-old Morandi Bridge and build a "less imposing" steel one.

Italy's government, however, has begun procedures to revoke the company's concession and has vowed that Autostrade per l'Italia will never again run the nation's roads.

Castellucci declined to talk about the government's stance. He said even though the cause of Tuesday's bridge collapse hasn't been determined "we apologize" since "perceptions count."

Castellucci also said the company would provide funds to help the hundreds of people evacuated from apartment buildings in the shadow of the bridge.

But the Italy's new populist government quickly spurned both the offer of help and the apology.

"Let's be very clear, the state won't take charity from Autostrade," Deputy Premier Luigi Di Maio, who attended the funeral, said in a Facebook post. "We'll insist on credible reimbursement, and there won't be any bartering. The only road the government will follow is that of going forward with revocation procedures."

At the state funeral, the names of the dead were placed on each coffin before the altar. Photographs, flowers and on one coffin a signed sports jersey, a sports trophy and a stuffed animal added personal touches.

Players from a local team in Italy's Serie D soccer, Campi Corniglianese, came to pay tribute to one of their own. Among the two Albanian dead was Marius Djerri, 22, who played for the team and was on his way to work for a cleaning company along with his compatriot when their truck plunged into the abyss.

"(Marius was) a golden boy. Maybe not the strongest player on the pitch, but as a person, I would like all players to be like him," team president Augustus Pintus said.</s>(Luca Zennaro/ANSA via AP). A view of the partially collapsed Morandi highway bridge in Genoa, Italy, Thursday, Aug. 16, 2018. Italian authorities have lowered the death to 38 from 39 in the collapse of a highway bridge in Genoa. Genoa Prefect Office o...

(Luca Zennaro/ANSA via AP). A view of the collapsed Morandi highway bridge, in Genoa, Italy, Friday, Aug. 17, 2018. Officials say 38 people are confirmed killed and 15 injured. Prosecutors say 10 to 20 people might be unaccounted-for and the death toll...

(AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia). A view of the collapsed Morandi highway bridge in Genoa, Italy, Friday, Aug. 17, 2018. Excavators have begun clearing large sections of the collapsed highway bridge in the Italian city of Genoa in the search for people still...

(AP Photo/Antonio Calanni). A woman mourns a victim of a collapsed highway bridge, at the Fiera di Genova exhibition center, where some of the coffins are laid in state, in Genoa, Italy, Friday, Aug. 17, 2018. A state funeral for most of the victims wi...

(Luca Zennaro/ANSA via AP). Firefighters remove debris of the collapsed Morandi highway bridge in Genoa, Italy, Thursday, Aug. 16, 2018. Italian authorities have lowered the death to 38 from 39 in the collapse of a highway bridge in Genoa. Genoa Prefec...

GENOA, Italy (AP) - Italy's president demanded guarantees Saturday that all the nation's roads are safe following the Genoa highway bridge collapse, after he hugged and comforted mourners at a state funeral in the grieving port city.

President Sergio Mattarella spoke quietly to victims' families before the ceremony began on Genoa's fairgrounds. Usually reserved in demeanor, Mattarella was embraced tightly for a long moment by one distraught woman.

He then took his place with other Italian leaders, including Premier Giuseppe Conte and the transportation minister, in the packed yet cavernous hall.

Afterward, Mattarella called the funeral, which took place on a day of national mourning, "a moment of grief, shared grief, by all of Italy."

One mourner, a local man who would only give his first name, Alessandro, held a placard that read: "In Italy, we prefer ribbon-cuttings to maintenance" - referring to the country's dilapidated infrastructure.

"These are mistakes that keep on repeating. And now, for the umpteenth time, angels have flown into heaven and paid for the mistakes of other human beings," Alessandro said.

As the city honored its dead, the toll from Tuesday's bridge collapse rose unofficially Saturday to 43 with the discovery of four more bodies in the rubble and the death in the hospital of the most severely injured survivor.

Firefighter Stefano Zanut told Sky TG24 TV they had extracted from tons of broken concrete the crushed car that an Italian couple on vacation with their 9-year-old daughter had been traveling in.

Zanut said the last body pulled out of the wreckage was that of a young Italian man, an employee of Genoa's trash company, who was working under the bridge when it collapsed. The man's mother had refused to leave a tent set up a few hundred yards away from the rubble until his body was found.

RAI state radio said authorities now believe there are no more missing in the tragedy.

Later, San Martino Hospital said a Romanian truck driver who had suffered severe cranial and chest injuries in the bridge collapse died Saturday evening.

The families of 19 victims their loved ones' coffins brought to the hall for the funeral Mass led by Genoa's archbishop, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, who said the tragedy "gashed the heart of Genoa."

"The initial disbelief and then the growing dimension of the catastrophe, the general bewilderment, the tumult of emotions, the pressing "Whys?" have touched us yet again and in a brutal way showed the inexorable fragility of the human condition," he said.

Among the coffins were those of two young Albanian Muslim men who lived and worked in Italy. Their remains were blessed at the end of the Catholic service by a Genoa imam, who drew applause when he prayed for God to "protect Italy and all Italians."

Players and managers from the city's two major league soccer teams, Genoa and Sampdoria, also attended after their weekend matches were postponed out of respect for the dead.

At other bridge funerals on Friday, angry mourners blamed authorities of negligence and incompetence for failing to keep the bridge safe.

During the state funeral, applause rang out and many fought back tears Saturday as a prelate read out the first names of some 30 victims who have been identified. The mourners also applauded Italian firefighters, police and volunteers for the civil protection department as they arrived.

Mattarella toured what's left of the Morandi Bridge, which broke apart in a fierce rainstorm, sending a long stretch of roadbed crashing 45 meters (150 feet) into a dry river bed near several apartment buildings. Those buildings have been evacuated and authorities say they will have to be demolished.

After the funeral, Mattarella told reporters the bridge collapse "is an unacceptable tragedy." He demanded that "responsibility be ascertained with rigor" for the collapse of the bridge, which linked two major highways, one leading to Milan and the other toward France.

Prosecutors say they are focusing their probe on possible design flaws or inadequate maintenance of the highway bridge, which was completed in 1967.

"I, too, have traveled over this bridge many times," said Mattarella, demanding that authorities commit to carrying out their "duty to guarantee the safety of our roads."

Responding to harsh criticism, the Italian highway company in charge of the collapsed bridge offered Saturday to build a new bridge in eight months.

Giovanni Castellucci, CEO of Autostrade per l'Italia, the company that manages Italian highways and bridges, told reporters it has a plan to demolish what's left of the largely concrete 51-year-old Morandi Bridge and build a "less imposing" steel one.

Italy's government, however, has begun procedures to revoke the company's concession and has vowed that Autostrade per l'Italia will never again run the nation's roads.

Castellucci declined to talk about the government's stance. He said even though the cause of Tuesday's bridge collapse hasn't been determined "we apologize" since "perceptions count."

Castellucci also said the company would provide funds to help the hundreds of people evacuated from apartment buildings in the shadow of the bridge.

But the Italy's new populist government quickly spurned both the offer of help and the apology.

"Let's be very clear, the state won't take charity from Autostrade," Deputy Premier Luigi Di Maio, who attended the funeral, said in a Facebook post. "We'll insist on credible reimbursement, and there won't be any bartering. The only road the government will follow is that of going forward with revocation procedures."

At the state funeral, the names of the dead were placed on each coffin before the altar. Photographs, flowers and on one coffin a signed sports jersey, a sports trophy and a stuffed animal added personal touches.

Players from a local team in Italy's Serie D soccer, Campi Corniglianese, came to pay tribute to one of their own. Among the two Albanian dead was Marius Djerri, 22, who played for the team and was on his way to work for a cleaning company along with his compatriot when their truck plunged into the abyss.

"(Marius was) a golden boy. Maybe not the strongest player on the pitch, but as a person, I would like all players to be like him," team president Augustus Pintus said.

Frances D'Emilio is on twitter at www.twitter.com/fdemilio

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>Across the west, the case for more public spending on infrastructure is unanswerableAnyone who lives in Minneapolis will understand the anger and grief of people in Genoa this weekend. Eleven years ago, an eight-lane interstate highway bridge over the Mississippi river in downtown Minneapolis collapsed, killing 13 people. The similarities between the tragedy in Minnesota and that in the northern Italian city on Monday are painfully striking. They underline that decaying infrastructure is not a purely Italian problem, but a scourge found in many of the world's most advanced economies.Like Genoa's Morandi bridge, whose collapse killed at least 38 people, the bridge in Minneapolis was opened in 1967. Just as the US National Transportation Safety Board concluded that a design flaw in the bridge had contributed to the 2007 collapse, so Italian prosecutors are investigating whether the Genoa disaster had a similar cause.In each case, the volume of traffic passing over the bridge in the years before its collapse was much greater than had been foreseen during its construction in the 1960s.The parallels between the US and Italian experiences do not stop there.More than once, President Donald Trump has likenedwhen it comes to infrastructure. Ray LaHood, transportation secretary under Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, says the US is "one big pothole". Every four years the American Society of Civil Engineers publishes a report card on the nation's infrastructure. Last year the association awarded the US a miserable D+.The story is no different in Italy. Public investment in infrastructure slumped after the 2008 financial crisis, which plunged the nation into successive recessions. But the problem has deeper roots.In 2009, Mario Draghi, the European Central Bank president, who was then governor of Italy's central bank, said: "In the last 20 years the gap between Italy's infrastructure endowment and that of the other leading EU countries has more than tripled . . . The list of high-priority strategic infrastructure projects, originally 21, has now swollen to over 200. The time and the costs for high-speed rail lines and motorway network extensions, and even for short road links and bypasses, are far greater than in other European countries."It is a far cry from the 1950s and 1960s, when Italy's post-second world war economic boom enabled governments to build a motorway network that was the envy of Europe. The Christian Democrat-led governments of that era were close to Fiat, Italy's iconic car company. It was never far from politicians' minds that a modern motorway system, as well as low petrol prices and lukewarm encouragement of competition from public transport, would benefit Fiat.For several decades, however, Italy was the winner. The Morandi bridge was an unforgettable part of the journey for countless holidaymakers driving their cars from southern France through Genoa to the cities and coastlines of the rest of Italy.After Monday's disaster Matteo Salvini, Italy's interior minister and leader of the far-right League party, blamed the eurozone's strict rules on budget deficits for Italy's under-investment in infrastructure. It was a cheap political point, and the European Commission swiftly rejected his claim. A bigger constraint is the crushing burden of interest payments on Italy's public debt, which amounts to about 132 per cent of annual economic output.However, even Germany, which effortlessly runs annual budget surpluses, has an infrastructure problem. The bridge over the Rhine at Leverkusen, one of Germany's busiest transport arteries, was closed to heavy goods vehicles in 2012 after cracks were discovered in its concrete. A replacement is not due to open until 2020. According to KfW, a state-owned development bank,Matters stand somewhat differently, but no better, in the UK.The High Speed 2 railway link between London and northern England, and the Hinkley Point nuclear power plant, are cases in point. The UK led the world in experimenting with private sector involvement in infrastructure projects, but it turns out that theAcross much of the western world the case for more government spending on infrastructure is unanswerable. Of course, it requires politicians to address controversial questions of taxation, spending priorities and state borrowing. But unless these questions are addressed, the next catastrophic bridge collapse is only a matter of time.</s>GENOA, Italy (AP) — The Latest on the Italy bridge collapse (all times local):

Genoa's archbishop has told mourners at a state funeral for victims of the city's bridge collapse that Pope Francis is praying for the dead and those suffering.

Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco said Francis offered words of comfort in a phone call Friday evening.

In his homily at the funeral Mass in a fairground pavilion, Bagnasco said Tuesday's highway bridge collapse over a dry riverbed "gashed the heart of Genoa". But he called for solidarity to build "new bridges to walk together" in a spiritual sense.

Bagnasco said the wound in Genoa's heart is deep "due to the boundless sorrow for those who lost their life," as well as the injured and the hundreds now homeless after nearby buildings were evacuated.

The death toll has risen to 42, according to media reports.

Players and coaches of Genoa's two main soccer teams are among those attending the state funeral for victims of the city's bridge collapse.

Both the Sampdoria and Genoa teams had already announced they wouldn't play their matches this weekend but at a later date.

Saturday is a day of national mourning. The funeral for 19 victims was held in a pavilion on the city's fair grounds. The unofficial death toll in Tuesday's collapse rose to 42 after four bodies were found in the rubble Saturday.

Italy's president has comforted families of many of the Genoa bridge collapse victims.

Before the service began, President Sergio Mattarella paused in silence before the coffins then spoke briefly with each group of families.

The unofficial death toll stands at 42 after the discovery of four bodies in the Morandi Bridge's rubble Saturday by rescuers.

Also attending the service were Premier Giuseppe Conte and several Cabinet members, including Italy's transportation and infrastructure minister.

Investigators are working to see if a design flaw or improper maintenance might have caused the collapse on Tuesday.

Saturday has been declared a day of national mourning.

Italian state radio says the body of a 30-year-old man has been found in the Genoa bridge collapse, bringing the death toll to 42.

The report also said rescuers believe all those previously thought missing might now have been accounted for, after an elderly man called local authorities to say he was OK and not involved in Tuesday's tragedy.

The local prefect's office, which is issuing official numbers of the dead, said it didn't immediately have information about the latest bodies found.

Italian media say three more bodies have been found in rubble of the Genoa bridge collapse, raising the death toll to 41.

Genoa's prefect's office said it didn't immediately have official confirmation of the reports by ANSA news agency and other Italian news media Saturday that the bodies were found by rescuers overnight.

ANSA said the bodies were found inside a car smashed under a huge block of concrete from the collapse on Tuesday. It said they were three family members, including a child, who had been traveling for a vacation when their car, with about 30 other vehicles, plunged when the bridge gave way.

Two other people are believed to be still missing as rescue work continues.
The death toll from the Ponte Morandi collapse in Genoa, Italy, rises to 43.