At the time of one dead and eight missing, the toll of the explosion in Ravanusa destroyed three buildings and damaged four others. Two women in the night between 11 and 12 December were pulled alive from the rubble of their collapsed home.
The explosion, which was also felt in neighboring countries, was allegedly caused by a large gas leak from the pipeline. “The gas has accumulated either underground or in a closed environment.
“The activation of the lift could also have triggered the explosion,” said the commander of the Agrigento fire brigade, Giuseppe Merendino. “In the next few days we will carry out more detailed investigations – he added – it is certain that such an explosion is an exceptional event”.
The death toll
The causes of the pipe rupture could be bad weather or a landslide. In the four-storey building destroyed by the explosion there were 9 members of the same family unit, one was found dead, two were saved at the moment: an 80-year-old woman, taken to the Licata hospital with serious fractures, and , according to the first investigations, the sister-in-law, whom the rescuers were able to track down by the ringing of the cell phone and who was transported to Agrigento.
The other family members are still missing, including a young nurse who has reached the end of her pregnancy and her husband. Tomorrow she would have to leave for Milan for her brother’s graduation. The pain of the mother who repeated “my daughter” while waiting for news was excruciating. We are still digging to look for the two people who were in the adjoining house at the time of the explosion. A spokesperson for Italgas, the company that distributes methane, said that “the technicians have completed the operations of isolating the section of the network and made the affected area safe by interrupting the flow of gas”.