Italy: Vigil held on second anniversary of bridge collapse

Residents in the Italian city of Genoa joined the families of the victims of the Morandi bridge collapse in a candle light vigil on Friday evening to mark the second anniversary of the disaster.

Three marches departed from the three neighbourhoods most affected by the collapse and converged into the "Clearing of Memory", a circle of 43 individual trees symbolizing those who lost their lives in the tragedy.

The site was inaugurated earlier in the day in an official ceremony attended by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who said he shared the families' quest for justice.

Mimma Certo's home used to stand right where the clearing is now.

She'd lived there since the early 1960s, before the Morandi Bridge was even built.

Its collapse forced Certo and her sister away from their home, which was later demolished along with others nearby.

"The clearing tonight is a wonderful gift, because to find all these people again, and see the shadows of trees and people projected onto the wall that once circumscribed our gardens, it seems to me something alive, beautiful," she said.

The disaster happened when a stretch of the Morandi Bridge suddenly gave way in a violent rainstorm, sending vehicles plunging to the dry riverbed below.

Now, two years on, it's been replaced by a new structure called St George's Bridge.

The families of the victims are upset that the company which maintained the old bridge will still run the new one for a while longer, even though poor maintenance is being investigated as a possible cause of the collapse.