Collapse of the Mirepoix-sur-Tarn bridge: five years later, what to expect from the trial which opens this Tuesday for manslaughter?

On November 18, 2019, a truck weighing more than 50 tonnes took the bridge spanning the Tarn river designed to support a maximum load of 19 tonnes. Two people were killed in the accident: the driver of the truck and a 15-year-old girl who was in a car that was thrown into the river when it collapsed.

“Let justice define the responsibility(s)”

“How in this day and age can you die crossing a bridge to go to school?”the mother of the deceased teenager said in court. “I expect a lot from this trial, that justice will define the responsibility(s)”she added. On the day of the tragedy, she and her daughter were occupying the vehicle which had fallen into the Tarn, but she was able to be rescued.

The deceased driver of the truck managed the drilling company Puits Julien, a company located a few hundred meters from the bridge which is being prosecuted in this case. A judicial investigation had been opened for homicide and involuntary injuries, as well as for “offenses aggravated by the manifestly deliberate violation of a particular obligation of safety or prudence imposed by law or regulation”.

“A truck with a load of 58 tons”

The structure, a metal structure dating from 1931, had been inspected two years previously and then was the subject of an inspection visit in December 2018, less than a year before the accident. The hypothesis of a breach of surveillance procedures was ruled out on the very day of the accident by the Departmental Council. This was confirmed Tuesday at the hearing by the expert responsible for rendering his conclusions.

The bridge was not “absolutely not capable of supporting a truck with a load of 58 tonnes”declared the expert before the criminal court. Following the collapse of the Genoa viaduct (Italy) in August 2018, a senatorial report pointed out in June 2019 the worrying state of“at least 25,000 bridges” road traffic in France, just before the accident at Mirepoix-sur-Tarn.