GENOA, Italy: Grieving relatives wept over the coffins of dozens of victims of Genoa’s bridge disaster Friday amid growing fury over a planned state funeral, while rescuers pressed on with their tireless search for those missing in the rubble.

The collapse of the Morandi bridge, a decades-old viaduct that crumbled in a storm on Tuesday killing at least 38 people, has stunned and angered the country, with Italian media reporting that some outraged families would shun Saturday’s official ceremonies.

Italy’s government has blamed the operator of the viaduct for the tragedy and threatened to strip the firm of its contracts, while the country’s creaking infrastructure has come under fresh scrutiny.

Authorities plan a state funeral service on Saturday at a hall in Genoa, coinciding with a day of mourning.

Relatives who gathered at the hall on Friday embraced and prayed over lines of coffins, many adorned with flowers and photographs of the dead.

TOPSHOT - A mourner prays at the coffin of a victim of the Morandi bridge collapse in Genoa, on August 17, 2018. - Grieving relatives wept over coffins of dozens of victims of Genoa's bridge collapse on August 17, 2018, as controversy clouded a planned state funeral, while rescuers pressed on with their formidable search for those missing in the rubble. Fury is growing over the shock collapse of the Morandi bridge, a decades-old viaduct that crumbled in a storm on August 14 killing at least 38 people, with Italian media reporting that some outraged families would shun August 19's official commemorations. — AFP pic
TOPSHOT - A mourner prays at the coffin of a victim of the Morandi bridge collapse in Genoa, on August 17, 2018. - Grieving relatives wept over coffins of dozens of victims of Genoa's bridge collapse on August 17, 2018, as controversy clouded a planned state funeral, while rescuers pressed on with their formidable search for those missing in the rubble. Fury is growing over the shock collapse of the Morandi bridge, a decades-old viaduct that crumbled in a storm on August 14 killing at least 38 people, with Italian media reporting that some outraged families would shun August 19's official commemorations. — AFP pic

But according to La Stampa newspaper, the families of 17 victims have refused to take part, while a further seven have yet to decide whether they will attend.

“It is the state who has provoked this; let them not show their faces, the parade of politicians is shameful,” the press cited the mother of one of four young Italians from Naples who died.

The father of another of the dead from Naples took to social media to vent his anger.

“My son will not become a number in the catalogue of deaths caused by Italian failures,” said his grieving father, Roberto.

“We do not want a farce of a funeral but a ceremony at home.”

Despite fading hopes of finding survivors, rescue workers said they had not given up as they resumed the dangerous operation to search through the unstable mountains of debris.

“Is there anyone there? Is there anyone there?” one firefighter shouted into a cavity dug out of the piles of concrete and twisted metal, in a video published by the emergency services.

The civil protection service said Friday evening they were searching for five missing people – down from 10-20 thought to be missing on Thursday.

Hundreds of rescuers are using cranes and bulldozers to cut up and remove the biggest slabs of the fallen bridge, which slammed down onto railway tracks along with dozens of vehicles.

“We are trying to find pockets in the rubble where people could be – alive or not,” fire official Emanuele Gissi told AFP.

Officials say about 1,000 people in all are working on the disaster site, 350 of them firefighters.

The populist government has accused infrastructure giant Autostrade per L’Italia of failing to invest in sufficient maintenance and said it would seek to revoke its lucrative contracts.

Interior Minister Matteo Salvini demanded the company offer up to 500 million euros ($570 million) to help families and local government deal with the aftermath of the disaster.

The dead also include children, one as young as eight, and three Chileans and four French nationals.

The Morandi viaduct dates from the 1960s and has been riddled with structural problems for decades, leading to expensive maintenance and severe criticism from engineering experts.

Relatives pray and pay their respects next to a coffin of a victim of the Morandi bridge's collapse in Genoa, at a funerary home installed at the fairground, in Genoa, on August 17, 2018. - Italy prepares to pay homage to the victims of the deadly bridge collapse as rescuers use diggers to claw through mountains of rubble in a desperate search for survivors, but some families are reportedly refusing the join the state memorial ceremony. A vast span of the Morandi bridge caved in during a heavy rainstorm in the northern port city of Genoa on August 14, 2018, sending about 35 cars and several trucks plunging 45 metres (150 feet) onto railway tracks below and killing at least 39 people. — AFP pic
Relatives pray and pay their respects next to a coffin of a victim of the Morandi bridge's collapse in Genoa, at a funerary home installed at the fairground, in Genoa, on August 17, 2018. - Italy prepares to pay homage to the victims of the deadly bridge collapse as rescuers use diggers to claw through mountains of rubble in a desperate search for survivors, but some families are reportedly refusing the join the state memorial ceremony. A vast span of the Morandi bridge caved in during a heavy rainstorm in the northern port city of Genoa on August 14, 2018, sending about 35 cars and several trucks plunging 45 metres (150 feet) onto railway tracks below and killing at least 39 people. — AFP pic

Its collapse prompted fears over ageing infrastructure across the world.

Autostrade, which operates and maintains nearly half of Italy’s motorways, estimates it will take five months to rebuild the bridge.

It denies scrimping on motorway maintenance, saying it has invested over one billion euros a year in “safety, maintenance and strengthening of the network” since 2012.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said Autostrade “had the duty and obligation to assure the maintenance of this viaduct and the security of all those who travelled on it.”

The disaster is the latest in a string of bridge collapses in Italy, where infrastructure generally is showing the effects of a faltering economy.

Senior government figures have also lashed out at austerity measures imposed by the European Union, saying they restrict investment.

But the European Commission said it had given Rome billions of euros to fix infrastructure. —AFP