Two collapses, just over an hour apart, shattered part of the ancient Torre dei Conti in central Rome. The first collapse surprised some workers renovating the medieval building overlooking Largo Corrado Ricci, near the Imperial Forums. The second occurred while rescuers were busy extracting the last worker still under the rubble. Fear erupted this morning in the heart of the capital. The first explosion, accompanied by a cloud of dust and debris, was heard after 11:00 a.m. Eleven workers from two different companies were working on the construction site at the time.

"It all happened suddenly," one of them said. "Then I only saw the cloud of dust and the rescuers." The hypothesis is that there was an internal collapse of the structure, perhaps of a foundation.

Four workers were hit, two of them trapped under the rubble. A 64-year-old man was freed shortly afterward and taken to the hospital by emergency services for a head injury, but the injuries are not serious. Two colleagues fared better, suffering only minor abrasions and refusing to go to the emergency room.

There was great concern, however, for a 66-year-old Romanian man. The worker was immediately located under the rubble, on the first floor of the tower: he was conscious and communicating with rescuers. However, the situation worsened when the second collapse occurred around 1:00 PM. The man was rescued by firefighters after about 11 hours and then taken to the hospital.

(Unioneonline)

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