Genoa bridge collapse tragedy 'will leave a mark on the soul'

If we were shocked by our first sighting of the Morandi Bridge - as we approached it after a fast deployment from Brussels - it's hard to imagine how the people who had lived with the landmark for decades feel.

A vision now breathtaking for all the wrong reasons.

The centre of the massive structure gone. Its tons of cement and metal deposited 45 metres below, dwarfing the emergency teams who work to find the victims of this tragedy in Genoa, north west Italy.

At any major disaster, be it earthquake, plane crash or the collapse of a bridge, it's always humbling to watch those men and women work.

Rotating in shifts to keep the search going every minute of every hour. Here, it is gruelling and dangerous work.

Those huge piles of rubble unstable, but they dig and search on - promising to keep going until they are sure there is no one left to find.

Ask them how they cope emotionally and they tell us "we're professional".

But, one phrase from a fire chief stuck with us.

"We are professional yes, but we are human too," he said. "This kind of incident leaves a mark on the soul".

And, how could it fail to when so many of those working here are local?

When they have recovered dozens of dead. When children are known to have been among the victims.

And, perhaps also for some, because they are wondering if this could have been prevented.

From the raw emotion and shock we encountered here in the hours after the bridge collapsed, with such devastating consequences, you now encounter growing anger.

Residents tell us they had been worried about the bridge for years.

Professionals, including a university professor, tell us they had been pushing for the bridge to be replaced for decades.

Others tell us they had warned repeatedly it was unsafe.

We don't yet know what caused the catastrophic failure in the structure.

But, the thought the sequence of events which unfolded here could have been avoided must be haunting for so many.

Families, engineers, maybe politicians who didn't heed the warnings.

The university professor I spoke to teared up as he told me: "We are angry. Not just sad. We are angry. We are Genoese and we share this".

It is an emotion which you sense will drive the quest for answers.