Those families on a trip to Lake Maggiore to breathe freedom

Silvia’s parents and brother leave the Stresa carabinieri barracks with their gaze lost in space. “She had just graduated, she went on a trip with her boyfriend. We learned about the crash by reading the websites”, they say shaken. In the barracks they had confirmation of the suspicion that they tried to keep away for hours, despite the fact that it was impossible to reach the two boyfriends on the phone, despite the news of the tragedy resounding everywhere. Silvia Malnati was 26, Alessandro Merlo 29. Both lived in Varese. “Whatever you can do, whatever dream you can dream, start”, wrote Silvia, quoting Goethe on social media when she graduated in Economics and Management on 23 March, a moment immortalized by the laurel wreath and the smile of a new phase of life that begins. For the moment she was happy to have found a job, recently employed at the Kiko perfumery in Milan.

Diamante’s girlfriend and her Iranian boyfriend

Diamante is more than a thousand kilometers away from Mottarone. A thousand kilometers that will now retrace the bodies of Serena Costantino, 27, and her Iranian boyfriend Mohammadreza Shahaisavandi aged 23. Both were residents in the Calabrian town but lived outside. She had recently moved to Verbania, after having won a research grant with the CNR and the Water Research Institute on March 15, after having studied at Sapienza in Rome. She had just unpacked and was getting used to the new life, while her fiancé still lived in the capital, who studies at the university and pays for his studies by working in a bar. But they had met for the weekend to bridge the gap between them. Now the authorities will have the difficult task of alerting the boy’s family, who still lives in Iran. While in Calabria mourning touched the entire region and condolences also came from President Giovanni Arruzzolo: “We are dismayed”.

Angelo and Roberta’s birthday present

Forty years, a date to remember with a nice trip on that cable car that climbs from Isola Bella to the top of Mottarone. Roberta Pistolato with her husband Angelo Vito Gasparro, five years older than her, had prepared everything to celebrate at the summit, on her birthday. They had left Emilia, two days of leisure.
They told everyone: the last message to his sister, who lives in Puglia, at 11 in the morning: “We are going up in the cable car”. They both grew up in Bari and for some years they had moved to Castel San Giovanni, in the province of Piacenza. He is a security guard, she is a doctor: in recent times she had been involved in the anti-Covid vaccination campaign, both in the hubs and at home to reach frail and elderly patients. This is why many wanted to remember her, as soon as the news reached the healthcare environments in which she had entered: “She was a helpful and cordial professional who has always shown a spirit of service”, writes the Piacenza Ausl.

Vittorio, Elisabetta and little Mattia

“A huge tragedy, by which as Vedanesi we are even more affected because it has devastated an entire family of our community”. Thus Cristiano Citterio, the mayor of Vedano Olona (in the Varese area), comments on the collapse of the cable car on the Mottarone in which three of his fellow citizens lost their lives. Among the victims are the 54 year old Vittorio Zorloni, his wife Elisabetta Persanini (38 years old) and their son Mattia (5 years old). “I am in contact with the carabinieri and I am waiting for further updates. At the moment I only know that Vittorio had left for a trip with his family, as many other Italians will have done on this Sunday of freedom after the long periods of lockdown – continues the mayor – The relatives have already left to go to the place and carry out the recognition of the bodies. The whole Vedanese community is gathering around them in this moment of terrible pain “.

They had just returned from Israel, from the war, the rockets and the endless mourning. Even if Amit’s heart and head were always there, on that conflict that also filled the last posts of his Facebook profile. They died on a sunny day, during “a trip to the mountains which – says Milo Hasbani, the president of the Jewish community in Milan – should have given everyone back a little carefree”. An entire family annihilated: Amit Biran, 30, who had moved to Pavia in 2018 to study medicine, his wife, Tal Peleg, 27, and Tom, the youngest son of just two, who was born in Italy, in the city that the couple had chosen to live in. With them, also two relatives who came from Israel to visit them. The only survivor, the oldest child of five. Which is still struggling. When he arrived, in very serious conditions, at the Regina Margherita children’s hospital in Turin, the doctors say, he was crying in despair and continues to repeat only: “Leave me alone, leave me alone”. His great-grandparents Itshak Cohen, 82, and his wife Barbara Cohen Konisky, 70, also died in the tragedy.