Bridge to withstand more than Messina earthquake
The planned suspension bridge across the Strait of Messina linking the island region of Sicily to mainland Italy in Calabria would withstand an earthquake greater than the one that flattened Messina and the surrounding area in 1908, Webuild CEO Pietro Salini said on Friday.
"Suspension bridges are by definition more resistant to earthquakes than any other structure precisely because of the way they are built," Salini told ReStart on Rai 3.
"If an earthquake like the one in Messina in the early 1900s were to occur today, a large part of the buildings there would collapse, but the bridge would remain standing," he added.
"If there were to be a larger earthquake, only the bridge would remain standing." On December 28, 1908 an earthquake measuring 7.5 on today's Richter scale hit Sicily and Calabria with the epicentre in the Strait of Messina.
The tremor and subsequent tsunami caused massive damage and killed up to 82,000 people.
The CEO of the engineering group that leads the Eurolink consortium that won the tender to build the bridge also said it has been designed "to withstand wind gusts of up to 300 km/h, while the maximum recorded in the last 100 years is 100 km/h for a short period".
