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Victims 'shining like stars' as Italy inaugurates new Genoa bridge

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Italy inaugurated a sleek new bridge in Genoa on Monday, though relatives of the 43 people killed when the old viaduct collapsed said the pomp…
Italy inaugurated a sleek new bridge in Genoa on Monday, though relatives of the 43 people killed when the old viaduct collapsed said the pomp and ceremony risked overshadowing the tragedy.
Jets trailing the colours of the Italian flag roared overhead and ship sirens sounded in the coastal city’s port, almost two years to the day the Morandi highway gave way during heavy rain, hurling dozens of cars and several trucks onto railway tracks below.
As a rainbow appeared in the sky, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte cut the ribbon on the new bridge, designed by famed Italian architect Renzo Piano, who gave it a curved, gleaming underbelly evoking the hull of a ship in tribute to Genoa’s maritime history.
“Forty-three stars will shine every night on high,” he said, as lamps along the bridge, numbered for the victims, lit up.
The names of the victims were read aloud — though many of their loved ones were not present.
“We won’t be at the inauguration, we don’t want the tragedy to be transformed into a carnival,” Egle Possetti, whose sister died in the August 14,2018 disaster along with her husband and their two children, said ahead of the ceremony.
“You can have this sort of big party if you knock down the bridge because it’s old, you build a new one, and no one’s died.

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