Incredible images from the center of Florence. At 6 on Wednesday morning, on the Lungarno Torrigiani - between Ponte Vecchio and Ponte alle Grazie - a chasm opened up about 30 meters long and seven meters wide. Around 200, then, a new collapse of about ten meters in the road surface widened the chasm. The collapse involved about twenty parked cars, some of which sank into the water. "No one was injured, but only damage: very heavy damage - said the mayor of Florence, Dario Nardella - it is a very serious chasm, the damage is enormous".
The collapse was caused by two failures in a water pipe: the first occurred during the night, the second caused the collapse of the Lungarno section at 6 this morning. The most serious breakage also caused the chasm to flood, partially submerging the cars that fell inside.
As a result of the first breakdown, which occurred around midnight and which would have blown up a manhole cover, the riverside had been closed, the city police explained, and Publiacqua, the company that manages the aqueduct, had been notified.
It is not excluded that if Publiacqua then closed the water inflow due to the first fault, there may have been an "overpressure" on other pipes, with consequent breakage of the main pipe.
The water was then dried up with dewatering pumps by the Fire Brigade who intervened on the spot with the police and the municipality. The Lungarno was closed to traffic and two buildings were evacuated as a precaution. Thousands of families were left without water, as were the schools in the area, to the point that civil protection volunteers mobilized to bring water to the children.
Telephone info match to the population due to inconvenience to the water network due to landslides #Torrigiani. Download the Alert System program app.
— Dario Nardella (@DarioNardella) 25 May 2016
"Firefighters and civil engineers do not exclude that the landslide could continue", added Nardella, who also invited citizens not to use the car to reach the Oltrarno area where the abyss occurred. "There is no danger of collapse for the buildings," the mayor said.
