Tragedy tonight on the railway line that connects Milan to Brandizzo station from Turin. Shortly after midnight, the engine of a regional convoy overwhelmed some workers who were working along the embankment. The balance is very heavy: five are dead and two are injured, whose conditions would not give cause for concern.
160km/h
The five workers – whose personal details have not yet been provided – were carrying out some maintenance operations and were completely overwhelmed by a locomotive handling the wagons, which was traveling – according to the first investigations by the police and Polfer – at 160 kilometers per hour. The workers were dragged hundreds of meters. The two wounded, who were working nearby, managed to avoid the locomotive and escape to safety: the foreman was among them. They have now been transported to hospital in a state of shock: their conditions are not serious.
The maintenance
As Rfi specified, the workers involved in railway maintenance worked on behalf of an external contractor, Sigifer of Borgo Vercelli. The train that killed the workers was empty and not in commercial service: it was traveling on track 1, in the direction of Turin. Ambulances for first aid and the carabinieri who carried out the first investigations on the dynamics of the investment intervened on the spot. An investigation has been opened by the prosecutor’s office. The intervention of the firefighters is still ongoing. The internal railway line from Chivasso to Turin is currently interrupted.
Mayor
«A colleague from 118 told me that he had seen a creepy scene, with human fragments within 300 meters. It’s a huge tragedy.” Thus the mayor of Brandizzo, Paolo Bodoni, who is a doctor by trade, after the accident that occurred last night on the Turin-Milan railway line. “One of his survivors should be the foreman,” adds the mayor. Which he then adds: «It cannot be excluded that he may have been a communication error, in any case it will be necessary to wait for the outcome of the investigations. At the moment the identity of the victims is not known, but they are not our fellow citizens”.
And witness
“We were at the bar that is right in front of the station – says Giulia, from Brandizzo – when we heard a loud noise, like an accident, but with something that dragged something else behind”. Her boyfriend, Antonino, ran to see what had happened and if anyone needed help, but a chilling scene was found before her eyes. “Now he’s in shock”, says the young woman again. There were only the engineers on the train, who were carrying an empty passenger train, in a logistical transfer. From the first information, they would not have noticed the workers, from a specialized company, who were starting work to replace some rails.
Article being updated…