Engineer warned in 1979 of risk to bridge

ROME - The Italian engineer who designed the Genoa bridge that collapsed and killed dozens warned four decades ago that it would require constant maintenance to remove rust given the effects of corrosion from sea air and pollution on the concrete.

RAI state television on Sunday broadcast excerpts of the report that the late engineer Riccardo Morandi penned in 1979, 12 years after the bridge bearing his name was inaugurated in Genoa.

At the time of writing, Morandi said there was already a "well-known loss of superficial chemical resistance of the concrete" because of sea air and pollution from a nearby steel plant.