As a mark of honour, players and managers of Genoa’s two major league football teams were among those attending the state funeral on Saturday for victims of the city’s bridge collapse.
Both the Sampdoria and Genoa teams had already announced they would not play their matches this weekend but at a later date as Saturday has been set aside as day of national mourning.
The funeral for 19 victims was held in a pavilion on the city’s fair grounds.
The unofficial death toll in Tuesday’s collapse rose to 42 after four bodies were found in the Morandi Bridge’s rubble Saturday by rescuers.
Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella had comforted families of many of the Genoa bridge collapse victims.
Before the service began, Mattarella paused in silence before the coffins, then spoke briefly with each group of families.
Also attending the service were Premier Giuseppe Conte and several Cabinet members, including Italy’s transportation and infrastructure minister.
Investigators are working to see if a design flaw or improper maintenance might have caused the collapse on Tuesday.
Italian state radio said the body of a 30-year-old man was found in the Genoa bridge collapse, which brought the death toll to 42.
The report also said rescuers believe all those previously thought missing might now have been accounted for, after an elderly man called local authorities to say he was okay and not involved in Tuesday’s tragedy.
The local prefect’s office, which is issuing official numbers of the dead, said it did not immediately have information about the latest bodies found.
Genoa’s prefect’s office said it didn’t immediately have official confirmation of the reports by ANSA news agency and other Italian news media Saturday that the bodies were found by rescuers overnight.
ANSA said the bodies were found inside a car smashed under a huge block of concrete from the collapse on Tuesday.
It said they were three family members, including a child, who had been traveling for a vacation when their car, with about 30 other vehicles, plunged when the bridge gave way.
Two other people are believed to be still missing as rescue work continues.
NAN
