The Second to Last Word

“Exact figures are not known yet but we can speak of at least 40 seriously injured,” a spokesman said.

The explosion came as the train was approaching the station in the coastal city of 50,000 inhabitants northwest of Pisa shortly after midnight, possibly due to a derailment, the Italian news agency ANSA reported.

Flames engulfed homes on a street alongside the station, prompting evacuation of areas located near the station.

The train of 14 railway cars was travelling from the north to Pisa.

UPDATE as of 29/6/09 11:19pm PST:

The body count has risen to 13 dead in this horrible accident. It has also been confirmed that two buildings have collapsed near the site. There are a total of 14 railway cars and they are being monitored for leaks and possible further explosions. At least 50 are reported injured; some with burns covering 90% of their bodies.

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UPDATE as of 29/6/09 11:19pm PST

Thousands have been evacuated from the epicenter of this terrible incident that rocked many out of bed late last night near the Viareggio train station. At this point, it seems clear that the train did indeed derail (as was reported earlier). The count at this time is 50 injured (some with 90% burns to their bodies) and the death toll is holding at 13 but many fear this could be higher. According to Reuters the Italian State railways said in a statement that one carriage derailed, pulling another 4 with it. Liquefied petroleum gas escaped from a tank on one of the carriages and caught fire.

UPDATE as of 29/6/09 11:57pm PST

On a radio interview on RTL 102.5 the Mayor of Viareggio, Luca Lunardini, says that things are under control and that the efforts of the firefighters as well as other first responders helped in controlling the situation. He said the fast response helped calm down the fearful residents in the area. He confirmed that the death toll is holding at 13 at this time, but that many of the survivors are in critical condition and are receiving medical attention at this time. Some of the injured are in stable condition, but fears that some of the survivors that are in critical condition may not survive. He added that along with the two buildings that were destroyed 4 to 5 other buildings sustained serious damage as well.

UPDATE as of 30/6/09 10:44amPST

At this time the death toll is confirmed at 14 as a woman was found in the rubble. Three residents are still missing. Many of those that were taken in with burns have been moved from stable condition to critical; 36 out of 50.

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UPDATE as of 1/7/09 9:20amPST

More than a day after a freight train derailed and exploded on the Italian coast, officials raised the death toll to 17, including two small children and an unidentified man who subsequently died of severe burns, news agencies reported. The 14-car train carrying liquefied petroleum gas derailed in Viareggio around midnight on Monday, engulfing a neighborhood in flames. More than 34 people injured, 12 of them in serious condition. The train was traveling south through coastal Tuscany when the axle on the first car broke, officials said. The train ran off the tracks and exploded.

The flames ravaged entire streets, and five buildings collapsed, killing some residents as they slept.

“It was an apocalypse,” a survivor said on Italian television, according to Reuters. “All we could smell was gas and things burning, and all we could see was flames.”

Three children were pulled alive from the rubble, the Italian news media reported.

More than 1,000 people were evacuated, and about 100 were left homeless, the mayor of Viareggio, Luca Lunardini, told news agencies.

Guido Bertolaso, Italy’s senior civil protection official, called the episode one of the “worst tragedies” to occur in the Italian train system, ANSA reported. In 2005, 17 people died in a collision between a passenger and freight train.

Raffaele Gargiulo, a police spokesman for the nearby city of Lucca, told The A.P. that the bodies of the dead were so badly burned that identifications would be difficult.

The regional spokesman for a railway union told ANSA that Tuesday’s accident was the fifth train-related accident in Tuscany this month. Several other trains either derailed or went off their tracks, though there were no reported fatalities or injuries.

Railway unions called for a one-hour halt in train traffic for Wednesday, Reuters reported, out of respect for the dead and to draw attention to the need for higher safety standards

Accusations of poor infrastructure and questions about why dangerous materials were being shipped through residential areas immediately added to the political pressures on Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. In the usual Italian style Berlusconi was met with boos and cries of “go home” when he arrived in Viareggio on Tuesday afternoon.

At a news conference, Mr. Berlusconi said that the government would soon call a state of emergency, and that it would also “guarantee the reconstruction of 100 percent of the houses destroyed,” Italy’s ANSA news agency reported.

The accident comes a week before the country is expected to host world leaders for the Group of 8 summit meeting, to be held in another disaster zone, L’Aquila. An earthquake there on April 6 killed nearly 300 people and left 65,000 homeless.

UPDATE as of 2/7/09 14:11pmPST

As of this writing the fatalities have risen to 19. The additional deaths came from complications suffered by those who amazingly survived the blast, but later perished.

According to a report filed on Reuters:

An Italian prosecutor investigating the explosion of a freight train which killed 18 people has opened a probe into possible manslaughter and said the buckling of one of the train’s parts may have caused the disaster.

“We cannot say more because the investigation is under way,” prosecutor Aldo Cicala told reporters on Thursday.

He said victims of the accident, which was triggered by the derailment and subsequent explosion of a railcar carrying liquid petroleum gas, were so badly burned that only three of them had been identified beyond doubt.

Transport Minister Altero Matteoli told parliament on Wednesday a defective axle may have caused Italy’s worst rail disaster in years, though the company owning the train carriages said it saw no link between them and the accident.

Matteoli, who visited the site of the incident in the seaside town of Viareggio, said one axle on the derailed railcar, owned by a subsidiary of U.S.-based GATX Corp was rusted.

“The one that I have seen was three-quarters consumed by rust,” he told La Stampa newspaper. “How is it possible that (a few) months after an inspection it was reduced to that condition?

“We need to know whether the inspection was done correctly or if something unexpected occurred,” he said.

GATX said in a statement after the accident that it did not see any connection between its wagons and the cause of the disaster, but it was collecting information.

Trenitalia, the state railway company, said on Thursday it would not use wagons supplied by GATX until the U.S. firm provided details on their components.

The Italian company which checked the railcars in March, Cima, said it had informed GATX that some of the wheels were no longer usable. The American company sent replacements, which Cima fitted.

“The repairs were carried out in full respect of the requests made by the company owning the wagons and of European Union requirements,” Cima said in a statement on Wednesday.

The director of health at Versilia hospital said the death toll from the accident had risen to 18, including 3 children. Some 26 people were injured, many of them seriously.

Italy has suffered several rail accidents in recent years. In 2005, 17 people were killed when a passenger train collided with a freight train near the northern city of Bologna.

ALSO…

(ANSA) – Viareggio, July 2 – The toll from Tuesday’s gas train explosion in the Tuscan town of Viareggio rose to 19 Thursday as a woman died in hospital.

About ten of the burns patients from the disaster are fighting for their lives, hospitals said.

Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi said the government was considering ”changing the rules for the transport of these tanker cars”.

He did not go into specifics, but promised a ”thoroughgoing” investigation into the cause of the disaster.

Italian rail chief Mauro Moretti told parliament that the train derailed when a part, believed to have been a rusty axle, gave way.

He said wagon parts were originally made in the East Germany in 1974 but were passed fit for use in 2004. Moretti denied reports that the axle showed signs of being soldered by rail safety workers.

”I’ve read some amazing things, written by people who are supposed to be experts…There was no soldering, it just gave way,” Moretti said at a Senate hearing.

The derailed railcar was owned by a Vienna-based subsidiary of the US-based GATX Corp.

Moretti said Italian rail would not use GATX wagons until the firm provided information on their components.

GATX said it can see no connection between its wagons and the disaster but it is gathering information.

The Italian company which last checked the railcars, Cima, said it had fitted some replacement wheels from GATX in March.

Moretti rejected rail union claims that less money is being spent on safety and maintenance, noting that Italy had 293 rail accidents in 1993 and only 19 last year.

A leading Italian consumer protection association, Codacons, said it would sue the Italian rail safety agency and was mulling class action against GATX in US courts.

Viareggio prosecutor Aldo Cicala said a probe had been opened into ”possible manslaughter by person or persons unknown”.

He said ”possible buckling’ of a mechanical component’ may have caused the disaster, Italy’s worst since 17 people were killed at Bologna station in 2005.

”We can’t say any more because the investigation is ongoing,” Cicala said.

Five children are among the victims of the blast, which happened after a car carrying liquid gas derailed and a fireball engulfed buildings.

Sixteen of the 19 victims were so badly burned that it was initially possible only to identify three of the bodies. But officials have now managed to identify ten of them.