Strait of Messina Bridge - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Strait of Messina Bridge is a long-planned suspension bridge

Suspension bridge

A suspension bridge is a type of bridge in which the deck is hung below suspension cables on vertical suspenders. Outside Tibet and Bhutan, where the first examples of this type of bridge were built in the 15th century, this type of bridge dates from the early 19th century...

across the Strait of Messina

Strait of Messina

The Strait of Messina is the narrow passage between the eastern tip of Sicily and the southern tip of Calabria in the south of Italy. It connects the Tyrrhenian Sea with the Ionian Sea, within the central Mediterranean...

, a narrow section of water

Water

Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...

between the eastern tip of Sicily

Sicily

Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

and the southern tip of mainland Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

. In 2006, under Prime Minister Romano Prodi

Romano Prodi

Romano Prodi is an Italian politician and statesman. He served as the Prime Minister of Italy, from 17 May 1996 to 21 October 1998 and from 17 May 2006 to 8 May 2008...

the project was cancelled. However, on 6 March 2009, as part of a massive new public works programme, Silvio Berlusconi

Silvio Berlusconi

Silvio Berlusconi , also known as Il Cavaliere – from knighthood to the Order of Merit for Labour which he received in 1977 – is an Italian politician and businessman who served three terms as Prime Minister of Italy, from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006, and 2008 to 2011. Berlusconi is also the...

's government announced that construction of the Messina Bridge would indeed go ahead, pledging €1.3 billion as a contribution to the bridge's total cost, estimated at €6.1 billion. If completed, the bridge will be the largest suspension bridge in the world, almost doubling the main span of the Akashi-Kaikyo. The bridge is part of the Line 1

Berlin–Palermo railway axis

The Berlin-Palermo railway axis is Line 1 of the Trans-European Transport Networks ,which involves the creation of a 2,200 km-long high-speed rail line between Berlin and Palermo.-Germany:...

of Trans-European Transport Networks

Trans-European Transport Networks

The Trans-European Transport Networks are a planned set of road, rail, air and water transport networks designed to serve the entire continent of Europe. The TEN-T networks are part of a wider system of Trans-European Networks , including a telecommunications network and a proposed energy network...

(TEN-T).

The idea for a bridge spanning the strait has been around since Roman

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

times. A design for a restrained buoyant submarine tube tunnel, that would have been anchored to the seabed, was submitted by British engineer Alan Grant in an international competition promoted by the Italian government in 1970. This was awarded one of six equal first prizes.

Geography

The Strait of Messina is a funnel-shaped arm of sea that connects the Ionian Sea

Ionian Sea

The Ionian Sea , is an arm of the Mediterranean Sea, south of the Adriatic Sea. It is bounded by southern Italy including Calabria, Sicily and the Salento peninsula to the west, southern Albania to the north, and a large number of Greek islands, including Corfu, Zante, Kephalonia, Ithaka, and...

in the south to the Tyrrhenian Sea

Tyrrhenian Sea

The Tyrrhenian Sea is part of the Mediterranean Sea off the western coast of Italy.-Geography:The sea is bounded by Corsica and Sardinia , Tuscany, Lazio, Campania, Basilicata and Calabria and Sicily ....

to the north. The width of the strait varies from a maximum of approximately 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) (between Capo d'Alì in Sicily

Sicily

and Punta Pellaro in Calabria

Calabria

Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....

) to a minimum of approximately 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) between Capo Peloro in Sicily and Torre Cavallo in Calabria. A similar distance separates Pezzo and Ganzirri; at that point, the strait is only 72 m (236.2 ft) deep, while in other places it can reach 200 m (656.2 ft) deep. It is also characterised by strong currents.

History

The Romans

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

considered building a bridge joining Calabria

Calabria

Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....

and Sicily

Sicily

made of boats and barrels. Charlemagne

Charlemagne

Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...

considered joining the two sides with a series of bridges. This idea was revived by the Norman

Normans

The Normans were the people who gave their name to Normandy, a region in northern France. They were descended from Norse Viking conquerors of the territory and the native population of Frankish and Gallo-Roman stock...

adventurer Robert Guiscard

Robert Guiscard

Robert d'Hauteville, known as Guiscard, Duke of Apulia and Calabria, from Latin Viscardus and Old French Viscart, often rendered the Resourceful, the Cunning, the Wily, the Fox, or the Weasel was a Norman adventurer conspicuous in the conquest of southern Italy and Sicily...

in the 11th century and by Roger II of Sicily

Roger II of Sicily

Roger II was King of Sicily, son of Roger I of Sicily and successor to his brother Simon. He began his rule as Count of Sicily in 1105, later became Duke of Apulia and Calabria , then King of Sicily...

in the 12th century. In 1876, Giuseppe Zanardelli

Giuseppe Zanardelli

Giuseppe Zanardelli was an Italian jurisconsult, nationalist and political figure. He was the 24th Prime Minister of Italy from February 15, 1901 to November 3, 1903.-Biography:...

was convinced that the strait could be linked by either a bridge or a tunnel. In 1866, public works minister Stefano Jacini

Stefano Jacini

Count Stefano Jacini was an Italian statesman and economist.Born at Casalbuttano, he was descended from an old and wealthy Lombard family. He studied in Switzerland, at Milan, and in German universities. During the period of the Austrian restoration in Lombardy he devoted himself to literary and...

gave Alfredo Cottrau, an internationally recognised engineer, the task of drawing up plans for a bridge between Calabria and Sicily. Later, in 1870, Navone proposed building a tunnel based on Napoleon's idea of a tunnel under the English Channel

English Channel

The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...

. This tunnel was to start at Contesse and was to pass below Messina and Ganzirri at a depth of 150 m, crossing the Strait to Punta Pezzo and resurfacing at Torre Cavallo.

A geologic study of the area of the Strait of Messina was published in 1909 (historical Arch. Sicilian year XXXIV f.1,2) and in 1921, a study of an undersea tunnel

Undersea tunnel

An undersea tunnel is a tunnel which is partly or wholly constructed under a body of water. They are often used where building a bridge or operating a ferry link is impossible, or to provide competition for existing bridges or ferry links...

was released to the Geographic Conference of Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

. A group of railway

Rail transport

Rail transport is a means of conveyance of passengers and goods by way of wheeled vehicles running on rail tracks. In contrast to road transport, where vehicles merely run on a prepared surface, rail vehicles are also directionally guided by the tracks they run on...

civil engineer

Civil engineer

A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering; the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructures while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing infrastructures that have been neglected.Originally, a...

s studied the possibility of a suspension bridge but nothing came of it. The idea was revived in the 1953 by master bridge builder David B. Steinman

David B. Steinman

David Bernard Steinman was an American structural engineer. He was the designer of the Mackinac Bridge and many other notable bridges, and a published author. He grew up in New York City's lower Manhattan, and lived with the ambition of making his mark on the Brooklyn Bridge that he lived under...

with a plan to build a bridge that crossed the Strait using two 220 m (721.8 ft) towers sunk in 120 m (393.7 ft) deep waters. The proposed 1524 m (5,000 ft) span would have represented a world record, eclipsing the then-longest 1275 m (4,183.1 ft) centre span of the Golden Gate Bridge

Golden Gate Bridge

The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening of the San Francisco Bay into the Pacific Ocean. As part of both U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1, the structure links the city of San Francisco, on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula, to...

and beating the 2256 m (7,401.6 ft) Mackinac Straits Bridge (then in planning) with a total length of 2988 m (9,803.1 ft). The proposed structure would have cleared the sea by 50 m (164 ft) to allow shipping passage, and to have had two decks, the lower to carry two rail lines, and 7 m (23 ft) above, a road deck 30 m (98.4 ft) wide. The main cables would have been 1 m (39.4 in) diameter. The bridge would have required 12,000 workers and cost hundreds of billions of lire

Italian lira

The lira was the currency of Italy between 1861 and 2002. Between 1999 and 2002, the Italian lira was officially a “national subunit” of the euro...

Early planning stages

In the 1960s, a wide variety of ideas evolved with everything from submerged tubes to floating struts, pontoons and a revolving central section of the bridge. None turned out to be realistic.
In 1969, an international design competition was arranged. Initially awarded to Sergio Musmeci (with the collaboration of Pier Luigi Nervi
Pier Luigi Nervi
Pier Luigi Nervi was an Italian engineer. He studied at the University of Bologna and qualified in 1913. Dr. Nervi taught as a professor of engineering at Rome University from 1946-61...

), the winning plan was briefly dismissed as considered too futuristic for the time.
In the 1970s, feasibility studies were undertaken by the State Railways
Ferrovie dello Stato
Ferrovie dello Stato is a government-owned holding which manage infrastructure and service on the Italian rail network. The subsidiary Trenitalia is the main rail operator in Italy.-Organization:Ferrovie dello Stato subsidiaries are:...

leading to the creation of a private company with responsibility for planning the crossing of the Strait.
In the 1980s, the Messina Strait Company (Stretto di Messina S.p.A.) was set up with support from the State Railways, the regions and IRI
Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale
The Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale was an Italian public company set up by the fascist government in 1933 to combat the effects of the global depression on the Italian economy...

. It concluded that it would be feasible to build a suspension bridge.
Detailed plans followed in the 1990s with final approval from the High Council of Public Works (Consiglio Superiore dei Lavori Pubblici).

Development of detailed plans

The 2006 plan called for a single-span suspension bridge with a central span

Span (architecture)

Span is the distance between two intermediate supports for a structure, e.g. a beam or a bridge.A span can be closed by a solid beam or of a rope...

of 3300 m (10,826.8 ft). This would have made the span more than 60% longer than the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

(the largest suspension bridge in the world at 1991 m (6,532.2 ft).

Plans called for six traffic

Traffic

Traffic on roads may consist of pedestrians, ridden or herded animals, vehicles, streetcars and other conveyances, either singly or together, while using the public way for purposes of travel...

lane

Lane

A lane is a part of the roadway within a road marked out for use by a single line of vehicles in such a way as to control and guide drivers for the purpose of reducing traffic conflicts. Most public roads have at least two lanes, one for traffic in each direction, separated by Lane markings...

s (two driving lanes and one emergency lane in each direction), two railway tracks and two pedestrian

Pedestrian

A pedestrian is a person traveling on foot, whether walking or running. In some communities, those traveling using roller skates or skateboards are also considered to be pedestrians. In modern times, the term mostly refers to someone walking on a road or footpath, but this was not the case...

lanes. In order to provide a minimum vertical clearance for navigation

Navigation

Navigation is the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another. It is also the term of art used for the specialized knowledge used by navigators to perform navigation tasks...

of 65 m (213.3 ft), the height of the two tower

Tower

A tower is a tall structure, usually taller than it is wide, often by a significant margin. Towers are distinguished from masts by their lack of guy-wires....

s was to be 382.6 m (1,255.2 ft). This would have been taller than the Millau Viaduct

Millau Viaduct

The Millau Viaduct is a cable-stayed road-bridge that spans the valley of the river Tarn near Millau in southern France. Designed by the British architect Norman Foster and French structural engineer Michel Virlogeux, it is the tallest bridge in the world, with one mast's summit at . It is the...

in France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

(currently the tallest bridge in the world at 341 m (1,118.8 ft)). The bridge's suspension system would have relied on two pairs of steel

Steel

Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...

cable

Cable

A cable is two or more wires running side by side and bonded, twisted or braided together to form a single assembly. In mechanics cables, otherwise known as wire ropes, are used for lifting, hauling and towing or conveying force through tension. In electrical engineering cables are used to carry...

s, each with a diameter of 1.24 m (48.8 in) and a total length, between the anchor blocks, of 5300 m (17,388.5 ft).

The design included 20.3 kilometres (12.6 mi) of road links and 19.8 kilometres (12.3 mi) of railway links to the bridge. On the mainland, the bridge was to connect to the new stretch of the Salerno

Salerno

Salerno is a city and comune in Campania and is the capital of the province of the same name. It is located on the Gulf of Salerno on the Tyrrhenian Sea....

-Reggio Calabria

Reggio Calabria

Reggio di Calabria , commonly known as Reggio Calabria or Reggio, is the biggest city and the most populated comune of Calabria, southern Italy, and is the capital of the Province of Reggio Calabria and seat of the Council of Calabrian government.Reggio is located on the "toe" of the Italian...

motorway (A3) and to the planned Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

-Reggio Calabria High-Speed railway

High-speed rail

High-speed rail is a type of passenger rail transport that operates significantly faster than the normal speed of rail traffic. Specific definitions by the European Union include for upgraded track and or faster for new track, whilst in the United States, the U.S...

line; on the Sicilian side, to the Messina-Catania (A18) and Messina-Palermo (A20) motorways as well as the new Messina railway station (to be built by Rete Ferroviaria Italiana

Rete Ferroviaria Italiana

Rete Ferroviaria Italiana is an Italian company fully owned by Ferrovie dello Stato . RFI is the owner of Italy's railway network, it sets train paths, provides signalling, provides maintenance and other services for the railway network...

).

Geographically, the bridge was planned to connect Reggio Calabria

Reggio Calabria

to Messina

Messina, Italy

Messina is the third largest city on the island of Sicily, Italy and the capital of the province of Messina. It has a population of about 250,000 inhabitants in the city proper and about 650,000 in the province...

, the two cities which face each other on either side of the strait and form a single city. This ambitious urban project was called Area Metropolitana integrata dello Stretto (Integrated Metropolitan Area of the Strait) or simply Città dello Stretto (City of the Strait). Among the controversies surrounding the building of the bridge was strong opposition to the formation of the new city by various Sicilian nationalist groups.

A construction consortium

Consortium

A consortium is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for achieving a common goal....

led by Impregilo S.p.A.

Impregilo

Impregilo S.p.A. is an Italian-based construction and civil engineering business headquartered in Milan. The company was founded in 1959 and, through mergers, has grown to become the leading Italian engineering and general contracting group in the construction and environmental sectors...

was chosen in 2005, with actual construction

Construction

In the fields of architecture and civil engineering, construction is a process that consists of the building or assembling of infrastructure. Far from being a single activity, large scale construction is a feat of human multitasking...

set to begin in the second half of 2006. The bridge was designed by Danish

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

architects at Dissing+Weitling in close collaboration with the Danish engineering firm COWI.

On 27 March 2006, Impregilo and Stretto di Messina announced that they had signed a contract assigning final project planning to a General Contractor. Impregilo S.p.A., the lead partner had a 45% share. Other participants were Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

’s Sacyr S.A.

Sacyr Vallehermoso

Sacyr Vallehermoso is a leading Spanish construction company based in Madrid. It is publicly-traded and is part of the IBEX 35 market value-weighted stock market index.-History:...

(18.70%), the Italian companies Società Italiana per Condotte D’Acqua S.p.A. (15%) and Cooperativa Muratori & Cementisti-C.M.C. of Ravenna (13%), Japan

Japan

’s Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Co. Ltd. (6.30%), and Consorzio Stabile A.C.I. S.c.p.a (2%). The General Contractor would also be assisted by the Danish and Canadian companies COWI A/S

COWI A/S

COWI A/S is an international consulting group, specialising in engineering, environmental science and economics, based in Lyngby, Denmark.It has been involved in more than 50,000 projects in 175 countries...

, Sund & Baelt A/S and Buckland & Taylor Ltd., who would handle project engineering. Completion was projected to take six years, at a projected cost of €3.9 billion. The first task of the General Contractor was to draw up the final project.

On 12 October 2006, the Italian Parliament voted 272 to 232 in favour of abandoning the plan due to the bridge's "doubtful usefulness and viability," as well as the inability of the already burdened Italian treasury to bear its share of the cost. Additionally, transport minister Alessandro Bianchi pointed out that the road and rail links leading to the location of the proposed bridge are not capable of supporting enough traffic to make the bridge profitable. Other reasons for abandoning the plan were earthquake risk, and fears that much of the funds would be diverted to the criminal organisations Cosa Nostra and Ndrangheta.

Current plans

On 15 April 2008 Silvio Berlusconi

Silvio Berlusconi

was re-elected prime minister of Italy

Prime minister of Italy

The Prime Minister of Italy is the head of government of the Italian Republic...

and vowed to restart the project to build the bridge. The following month, Altero Matteoli

Altero Matteoli

Altero Matteoli is an Italian politician, former member of Alleanza Nazionale right-wing party and then member of People of Freedom.Matteoli was born in Cecina. From 2001 to 2006 he was the Italian Environment Minister.-References:*...

, Italy's minister of infrastructure and transport confirmed the government's intent to restart work on the bridge in a letter to Pietro Ciucci, the president of Società Stretto di Messina.
On 6 March 2009, as part of a massive new public works programme, Silvio Berlusconi

Silvio Berlusconi

's government announced that plans to construct the Messina bridge had been revived, pledging €1.3 billion for the bridge as a contribution to its estimated cost of €6.1 billion euros.

Some 3300 m (10,826.8 ft) long and 60 m (196.9 ft) wide, the bridge would be supported by two 382 m (1,253.3 ft) pillars, each higher than the Empire State Building

Empire State Building

The Empire State Building is a 102-story landmark skyscraper and American cultural icon in New York City at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and West 34th Street. It has a roof height of 1,250 feet , and with its antenna spire included, it stands a total of 1,454 ft high. Its name is derived...

in New York

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. There would be two motorway lanes and one emergency lane in each direction catering for 6,000 vehicles per hour, a double track railway for up to 200 trains a day and two independent lanes for service traffic and pedestrians.

Berlusconi believes work will be completed by 2016.

Until 2006, when the project was halted, the work had been assigned to a consortium of Italy's Impregilo

Impregilo

, Condotte d'Acqua, Cooperativa Muratori & Cementisti (CMC), and Consorzio Stabile A.C.I., alongside Spain

Spain

's Sacyr Vallehermoso

Sacyr Vallehermoso

Sacyr Vallehermoso is a leading Spanish construction company based in Madrid. It is publicly-traded and is part of the IBEX 35 market value-weighted stock market index.-History:...

, and Japan's Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries.

On 23 December 2009, preparatory work started with the diversion of the Tyrrhenian railway at Cannitello on the Italian mainland side of the strait.

Controversy and concerns

Supporters see the bridge as a huge job-creation scheme and a boost for tourism. However, many also question the priority of the bridge, claiming that if the government concentrated instead on making Sicily's roads more efficient, drivers would be able to reach the coast more quickly at a fraction of the bridge's cost.

Others believe that the bridge is quite unnecessary, since the local economy is already providing for the conversion of a local former NATO airport

Comiso Airport

Comiso Airport , also known as Vincenzo Magliocco Airport is located in the Sicilian province of Ragusa, 5 km from Comiso and 15 km from Ragusa. It changed from military to civil use during 2005-2008...

into a commercial terminal to export vegetables to Northern Europe

Northern Europe

Northern Europe is the northern part or region of Europe. Northern Europe typically refers to the seven countries in the northern part of the European subcontinent which includes Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Finland and Sweden...

. Alternatively, a much cheaper revamping of the current structures is claimed to be sufficient (for instance, the ferry

Ferry

A ferry is a form of transportation, usually a boat, but sometimes a ship, used to carry primarily passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo as well, across a body of water. Most ferries operate on regular, frequent, return services...

lines on the Calabria

Calabria

Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....

side are now accessible by trucks only by driving through very narrow streets, which are a tight bottleneck for transport). Another argument against the bridge is the poor state of the transport infrastructure in Sicily, particularly the railroad and Autostrada A20

Autostrada A20 (Italy)

The Autostrada A20 is a motorway on the island of Sicily that links the city of Palermo to Messina. The motorway from Messina follows the Tyrrhenian coast for until it meets the A19 Palermo-Catania at Buonfornello...

linking Messina to Palermo

Palermo

Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...

, and poor state of the Autostrada A3 on the mainland linking Reggio Calabria

Reggio Calabria

to Naples

Naples

.

There are also concerns about the environmental impact of the bridge, its actual feasibility, and whether it could resist earthquake

Earthquake

An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...

s, which are not uncommon in the region.

External links

Bridge design site (English version) - Currently under maintenance Ponte di Messina - A complete and detailed private site
Messina Bridge
Strait of Messina with the Messina Bridge
Bridging the Strait of Messina
BBC News
BBC News
BBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...

"Italy revives Sicily bridge plan"
BBC News
BBC News
BBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...

"Sicily bridge constructor named"
Transcript of RAI
RAI
RAI — Radiotelevisione italiana S.p.A. known until 1954 as Radio Audizioni Italiane, is the Italian state owned public service broadcaster controlled by the Ministry of Economic Development. Rai is the biggest television company in Italy...

broadcast Report about the bridge.

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Geography

History

Early planning stages

Development of detailed plans

Current plans

Controversy and concerns

Further reading

External links