Italy’s plan for a suspension bridge linking Sicily to the mainland have been put in doubt following a report which says that the structure will be anchored on a shifting seabed.
Construction is due to start in 2005 and end by 2011 and is expected to cost £3.1bn. The bridge will span the two-mile Straits of Messina in Italy’s earthquake-prone and mafia-ridden Mezzogiorno .
Project managers say the bridge, with a 12-lane motorway and a two-way railway, will drag Sicily out of its economic dark ages. It will also supposedly resist earthquakes of up to 7,1 on the Richter scale and winds of more than 125mph.
But in a report published this week, seismologists said the structure will span a geological fault line. Its two anchor posts — each higher than the Eiffel Tower — would be constantly shifting in different directions.
Italy’s National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and the Environment said that Calabria, the mainland province opposite Sicily, is rising two millimetres each year because of the movement of the region’s tectonic plates. But Sicily only rises half a millimetre over the same period.
The report said that if the region were to be hit by an earthquake like the one which killed tens of thousands of people in Messina in 1908, the gap between the plates beneath the Messina Straits could widen suddenly by 50cm. But the consortium in charge of the project insists that these factors have been taken into account during the 30-year process of planning for the bridge.
”The technical life of the bridge will be 200 years,” said project manager, Pietro Ciucci. ”After that, we’ll think again.”
Environmentalists, who have long opposed the project on ecological grounds, said the report was fresh evidence that there are ”a hundred black holes” in the scheme.
Anna Donati, a Green party deputy who has criticised the government for using the flamboyant project to cover up its failed election promise to produce an ”economic miracle”, said the project did not conform with the European Union’s environmental regulations.
Supporters claim a â,¬10 toll will mean the bridge will eventually pay for itself. They also say Sicily’s economy will be transformed by making it possible to travel from Palermo to Berlin in five hours.
But sceptics warn that while the bridge may smooth trade links it will also provide a direct line between the Sicilian mafia and Calabrian gangsters. Officials have acknowledged that many of the bridge’s construction contracts could end up with organised crime.
Silvio Berlusconi announced in January that his government would be the one to make the dream of the bridge come true. ”If you are not optimistic, you don’t move forward,” he said, insisting that the project was now ”unstoppable”. – Guardian Unlimited Â