Construction site collapsed, another body identified: there are now five victims

The death toll from the collapse on the construction site of an Esselunga supermarket in Florence rises to five.

The firefighters, who worked among the rubble all night, recovered the body of a fourth worker and in the afternoon the fifth, the one who was lost and buried under the debris. However, three of the injured are responding well to hospital treatment.

According to initial findings, chain collapses caused the disaster in the store under construction on the site of a disused and demolished barracks in via Mariti. First the highest floor collapsed, then three floors below. It is hypothesized that a prefabricated concrete beam or even the tooth of a pylon holding the same beam would have failed. Hence the first trigger of the terrible collapse that overwhelmed eight workers who were working in the attics below.

The prosecutor's office has opened a case of multiple manslaughter. There are currently no suspects. Throughout the day, and it will continue to be the same in the next few days, the companies' designers and technicians, together with the investigators, have been engaged in a difficult investigation to establish exactly what caused the structural failure .

The elements falling from above weighing tons broke through several floors of the building under construction. Shedding light on the construction technique adopted and the quality of the materials used is the path that the prosecutor's investigators together with the fire brigade technicians are following. The certifications of materials, methods and work processes are evaluated , documents and projects have been acquired.

An "unacceptable" trail of blood, say CGIL, CISL and UIL who called a united strike at regional level in the last two hours of the shift: "We appeal to institutions, the business world, control bodies, no more deaths at work!" .   The appeal is also to politics and the government: the Minister of Labour, Marina Calderone, assures new interventions, a package of measures, already in the next council of ministers.

(Unioneonline/D)