A young Italian couple and their seven-year-old son are among the 38 or more victims of the catastrophic Genoa bridge collapse. Roberto Robbiano, his wife Ersilia Piccinino and their son Samuele all died when their car plummeted 150ft to the ground after a 260ft section of the Morandi bridge suddenly disintegrated in a thunderstorm on Tuesday. The family was heading to lunch with grandparents when the bridge, which spans a broad valley of apartment blocks, warehouses and railway lines, collapsed. Firefighters found Samuele’s favourite football, decorated with images of Spiderman, inside the smashed remains of their car, Italian media reported. Two employees of a waste management company, who were working in the valley beneath the bridge when it collapsed, were also killed. They were named as Bruno Casagrande, 57, and Mirco Vinci, 30. They were doing shift work in place of regular workers who had gone away on their summer holidays. “They had only just started their contracts,” said Tiziana Merlino, the director of the waste management company AMIU. With Genoa and the surrounding Liguria region in shock, the mayor of the port city declared two days of mourning, starting today. Andrea Cerulli, 48, an avid fan of the local football team, was also killed in the tragedy. His girlfriend and son had gone on holiday but he had stayed behind in Genoa to work. He was killed as he drove to work. Three children were among the dead, according to the Italian media. Among them was an unnamed boy from Florence in Tuscany. Dario Nardella, the mayor of Florence, offered his condolences to the boy’s family but did not say if any of his relatives were among the victims.

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