Geremia II Bridge
Geremia II Bridge
Viadotto Geremia II
Butera, Caltanissetta, Italy
(230) feet high / (70) meters high
(131) foot span / (40) meter span
19??
An incident in 2009 gave the Geremia II Bridge a permanent place in Italian transportation history when one of the 40 meter spans suddenly dropped from two of the highest piers. Poor inspection and maintenance resulted in at least one of the pier foundations to shift out of alignment. Eventually repairs to the piers and foundations allowed a new replacement span to cross the gap and the road reopened to traffic.
But the collapse of the Geremia II Bridge span in 2009 was not really an isolated Sicily incident as a similar accident occurred in 2013 on the Verdura River Bridge along highway 115. Problems continued in 2014 when a span on the Petrulla viaduct collapsed along state road 626. Finally in 2015 a span collapsed on the Himera Viaduct.
All of these collapses pale in comparison to what would become the worst bridge disaster in Italian history when two of the spans and a tower of the Morandi / Polcevera Bridge collapsed in August, 2018.
Geremia II Bridge satellite image.
Geremia II Bridge location map.
