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Morandi bridge disaster: search for missing people ends, as Italy's government announces massive plan to make public structures safe

43 dead: the collapsed bridge yesterday as searches were called off: Getty Images
43 dead: the collapsed bridge yesterday as searches were called off: Getty Images

The search operation for those missing in the Genoa bridge disaster has ended, with the final death toll resting at 43.

Three bodies were recovered from a car crushed under slabs of concrete yesterday. Nine people are still in hospital, four in critical condition.

A 200-metre section of the Morandi bridge gave way in busy traffic on Tuesday, plunging vehicles and chunks of concrete and twisted metal to the ground 165 feet below.

All those listed as missing have now been accounted for.

fire brigade official Stefano Zanut told Sky TG24: "Our work continues in order to have the full certainty that nobody has been left under the rubble."

He said workers were also making the site secure and helping investigations to establish the cause of the disaster.

The viaduct was part of the A10 motorway linking the port city with the French border to the west and was managed by toll-road operator Autostrade per l'Italia, a unit of infrastructure group Atlantia.

Autostrade pledged half a billion euros on Saturday to rebuild the bridge and set up funds to immediately assist the families of the victims and those displaced from their homes by the collapse and reconstruction work.

On Friday, the government formally launched a procedure to revoke concessions held by Autostrade to operate toll highways.

Meanwhile the Italian government has launched plans to make Italy's infrastructure safe.

Giancarlo Giorgetti, undersecretary in the prime minister's office and a leading member of the League party, said the plan would include motorways, bridges and viaducts but also public buildings such as schools.

"It will be a maintenance operation with no precedents, with enormous investment in public works," he said in an interview with Il Messaggero.

He did not specify the cost of the plan but said "deficit, GDP or European rules do not exist".