Visitors do assuming that it will hold their weight The news dropped last Thursday out of a clear blue sky. Shortly after 9am, Italy learnt that a huge lorry bomb had detonated at its Carabinieri base in southern Iraq. Hours later, as details of the atrocity were still coming in, Silvio Berlusconi's cabinet had something quite different on their minds
The news dropped last Thursday out of a clear blue sky. Emmanuel Audino, 33, a shipyard worker wrote: "The Queen Mary 2 has not yet left the shipyard but it has already gone down in legend.". "I could feel the bridge going and I shouted to everyone to hold on to the sides as best as they could." Thousands of local people signed a book of condolences yesterday. Others, who managed to cling to the bridge as it collapsed, suffered serious or minor injuries. Jason Schmitt, a shipyard worker who was visiting the liner with his mother, escaped with bruises His mother suffered back injuries "It was a miracle we survived," he said. Later that day, the gangway and the supporting scaffolding buckled while 44 people were crossing to, or from, the liner Some people fell 60ft to the concrete floor of the dry dock Twelve people, including several children, died immediately Three have since died from their injuries. Under the English headline "Bloody Mary", the newspaper said that the shipyard had been "too hasty" in opening the liner to visits by the family and friends of yard workers.The footbridge was built by specialist contractors on Friday and had been used by hundreds of yard workers that afternoon and Saturday morning. The regional newspaperOuest France suggested yesterday that "legitimate pride" at the completion of such a beautiful ship, on time and within budget, had perhaps led the shipyard, Les Chantiers de L'Atlantique, to throw caution to the winds. The vessel the largest, most elaborate and costliest liner ever built had successfully completed its second sea trials last week. One shipyard worker said: "They should never have used a shipyard gangway for family visits Workers don't go across all at the same time.
Visitors do, assuming that it will hold their weight." The disaster will cast a shadow over the triumphant conclusion of the three years work on the linerat Saint-Nazaire and the planned commissioning and naming of the ship by the Queen in Southampton in January. They said that it was an industrial gangway of the kind used by shipyard workers: a narrow, metal strip, fenced on either side and supported by scaffolding. For this reason, the bridge did not have a safety net, as is often the case with public footbridges in France. President Chirac said he hoped the inquiry would "rapidly establish responsibility" for the "incomprehensible tragedy."Shipyard officials refused to comment on the causes of the disaster on Saturday afternoon but admitted that the gangway one of several linking the ship to the dock-side had not been built with public visits in mind. The death toll from the gangway catastrophe beside the world's largest cruise ship, the Queen Mary 2, rose to 15 yesterday, amid questions about the presence of so many visitors in a working shipyard. But the Prime Minister, Zoran Zivkovic, said that there was no need to panic because his outgoing government would lead the republic until the December elections.Stjepan Gredelj, an independent election analyst who monitored the vote, said that he feared "an institutional chaos" without a president.Voters stayed away from the polls because of disillusionment with the country's leadership, which has failed to bring economic progress to Serbia following a decade of war.Labour protests are on the rise and people are generally dissatisfied with their living standards in Serbia, which with the much smaller republic of Montenegro formed Serbia Montenegro, the country that replaced Yugoslavia."The politicians are getting what they deserve," Mr Gredelj said.. Parliament was dissolved last week because the pro-Western government lost parliamentary support, leaving no one to call a presidential vote. |
 |
 |
