Around 50 residents on Tuesday demanded rehousing and respect after they were admitted to a Genoa council meeting regarding the tragedy.
They handed out leaflets entitled The Morandi Bridge People and chanted “Respect, respect!” at the meeting.
"We come before businesses, we come before the transport system, we come first, we want homes,” they told Liguria President Giovanni Toti.
Italy’s interior minister Luigi Di Maio showed his support for the residents and their demands later on Tuesday.
“They’re perfectly right... you can’t leave people at the whim of Autostrade handouts,” he said, adding that a government decree was being prepared to address the rehousing of the evacuees.
Toti responded to Di Maio by arguing that the evacuees had all received “public accommodation, and in record time”.
“While you [Di Maio] were speaking with the press, the mayor and I were with the evacuees, clearing up any doubts and understandable concerns,” Toti added.
“Fewer polemics and more concrete action is needed to help Genoa.”
Italy’s transport minister Danilo Toninelli said on Tuesday that the government will provide financial assistance to evacuees and that all displaced residents will be resettled within three months.
“The government will implement forms of assistance regarding the mortgage payments that many families are now forced to pay for houses they can no longer live in,” he added.
A demolition plan for the collapsed bridge will be presented by Autostrade per l’Italia within five days, Toti confirmed on Tuesday.
With ANSA
