(Milan) The leading Italian construction group Webuild (formerly Salini Impregilo) offered its services on Friday to rebuild as quickly as possible the bridge which collapsed at the end of March in Baltimore on the east coast of the United States, as it had rebuilt the Genoa viaduct.
Webuild and its American subsidiary Lane presented a project involving the design of “a safe and innovative cable-stayed bridge to redefine the entrance to the historic port of Baltimore, the hub of American logistics,” the group said in a press release. .
The proposal, developed “free of charge” as a sign of “solidarity and friendship with the United States”, was written in collaboration with the architect Carlo Ratti, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the French bridge and road engineer Michel Virlogeux, specifies Webuild.
“Webuild and its American subsidiary Lane are ready to make themselves available to quickly rebuild this strategic bridge for local mobility,” assured Webuild CEO Pietro Salini in a letter sent to the American authorities.
A container ship ran into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore in the middle of the night, causing it to collapse. The disaster left six people dead.
Reconstruction of the bridge located 65 kilometers north of Washington is expected to take up to three years.
The Webuild project provides “maximum safety for navigation, even for the largest ships”, with a clear height under structures of 65 meters, “which is much higher than that of the collapsed bridge”.
Webuild recalls having rebuilt, “at cost, without benefit for the group”, the Genoa bridge in the north-west of Italy, whose collapse in 2018 caused 43 deaths.
The Italian group adds that it “built the new Genoa bridge in about a year, despite the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, working around the clock”.