Over 20 have been killed and dozens more are feared dead when a motorway bridge collapsed at 11.30am this morning in Genoa, Italy during a fierce thunderstorm, with cars and trucks falling 300 feet onto rail tracks below.
It happened when Pluto and Mars in Capricorn were straddling the IC which is brutal enough. And the weekend’s Solar Eclipse at 18 Leo was opposition the Eclipse Neptune/Pluto midpoint, aspected also by Venus and Saturn, which is often around during major disasters.
This recent Eclipse also had Pluto and Mars straddling the IC set for Genoa; the late July Lunar eclipse had Neptune on the Ascendant and Venus on the Descendant; the mid July Solar Eclipse had Neptune on the MC and Saturn on the Descendant. So it was a significant location with planets on the angles.
The Italy 17 March 1861 chart does look shaken at the moment with tr Neptune square the Sun/Saturn midpoint, which Ebertin connects to unexpected events to do with flying and water; and disintegration. Which isn’t, tragically, too far off the mark.
Apart from that all that’s showing on the Italy chart is an overdose of Jupiter which oddly enough often does accompany disasters. The weekend Leo Solar Eclipse was conjunct the Italy Jupiter; and tr Pluto is conjunct the Solar Arc Jupiter and both conjunct the Italy North Node. The Italy Neptune/Pluto midpoint is also being sparked up this year by tr Pluto square, back to the exact aspect in September and October. There must have been sub-standard building materials used which is a scary thought.
What with bridge collapses, burning-car rioters in Sweden and another terrorist car attack in London, the Mars opposition North Node square Uranus is making its explosive and disruptive presence felt.
I’m angry. I love Genoa, but then again, “genovesi” themselves would be the first ones to admit traffic there is dangerous and should be rearrange. But, I drove over the bridge 20 years ago with someone who was working for a very prominent structural engineering studio, and he said the bridge was going to fall. I also talked to forwarders in Genoa on almost daily bases 15 years ago, and again, loads of complaining on Genoa traffic, in general, and this bridge in particular. So, this, if anything, was a “disastro annunciato”, an ‘announced disaster’, that has now cost at least 35 lives and will gribble Genoa economically.
Ponte Morandi was inaugurated Sept 4th 1967 by then President of The Italian Republic, Giuseppe Saragat. I drew the chart, and once again noticed you just can’t make certain things shown by Astrology up. It had a heavy Virgo chart, with Venus, Sun, Moon, Uranus, Pluto and Mercury in the sign. Venus was retrograde, making the maintenance of the bridge a money pit due to experimental technique used by Riccardo Morandi and proved very unsuitable for heavy traffic caused by Genoa Port. Sun and Moon were likely very closely conjuct at the time of inauguration, which shows in that people of Genoa and Liguria always had a very emotional relationship with this bridge – you just had to use it to get from Eastside of the city to Westside in less than two hours, yet it could be a scary experience due to traffic and shakiness of that bridge. And then we get to the part that is really troubling. Those Sun and Moon were inconjuct Aries Saturn. Uranus and Pluto joining Mercury go without saying. Also, there is wide a Scorpio Neptune/Mars conjunction on that chart, aspecting both Uranus/Pluto/Mercury (trine) and Leo Jupiter (square).
The bridge may have been the pride of the city and whole Italy (although not as well known abroad as many other Italian cities, Genoa has a very special place in Italian ethos, being the main port during Risorgimento and Unification, and it’s prominent in pop culture through an impressive number of musicians and comedians who hail from the town) when it opened. But it soon became contested, and has been in center of most political struggles in Genoa and Liguria for last 20 years at least. Now it becomes incredibly embarrassing for Italian Government, due to founder of M5S Beppe Grillo being from Genova, and much of the early support for the Movement coming from Genoa Residents who opposed the plan to build a new autostrada taking away some of the pressure from the old coastal route and, also, dismantling Ponte Morandi. This is while Lega leader Salvini has publicly called for punishing all the people responsible for what happened (right now, EU, which had OKyed funding for new autostrada, not unsurprisingly, since this is the only direct road from Southern France and Spain to Northern Italy, and a good part of imports from Asia to Southern Germany go through Genoa Port, too).