Viareggio derailment
Details
Date29 June 2009
23:48 UTC+2
LocationViareggio railway station,
Viareggio (LU)
Coordinates43°52′16.21″N 10°15′23.13″E / 43.8711694°N 10.2564250°E / 43.8711694; 10.2564250
CountryItaly
LinePisa–La Spezia–Genoa
OperatorFerrovie dello Stato (FS) (locomotive) / GATX (wagons)
Incident typeDerailment
CauseDefective axle
Statistics
Trains1
Passengers0
Deaths32[1]
Injured26[2]
DamageAreas near railway station seriously damaged by fire

The Viareggio derailment was the derailment and subsequent fire of a freight train carrying liquefied petroleum gas. It occurred on 29 June 2009 in a railway station in Viareggio, Lucca, a city in Central Italy's Tuscany region. Thirty-two people were killed[2][3] and a further twenty-six were injured.[1]

Details

Some cars parked near the railway line burn

Freight train No. 50325 from Trecate to Gricignano-Teverola,[4] hauled by Class E655 locomotive E 655 175 with 14 tank wagons[5] was derailed at Viareggio at 23:48 local time (21:48 UTC) on 29 June 2009.[6] Of the 14 wagons, the first wagon was registered by Polskie Koleje Państwowe, the other 13 wagons by Deutsche Bahn (DB).[7] The first DB-registered wagon, No. 338078182106, which was owned by GATX Rail Austria GmbH derailed on plain track in Viareggio station. The wagon hit the platform of the station and overturned to the left. The next four wagons also overturned and the two following were derailed but remained upright. The last seven wagons were not derailed, remaining intact on the track.[6] The derailed wagons crashed into houses alongside the railway line.[8]

Some of the wagons were owned by KVG Kesselwagen, a division of GATX, and leased to ExxonMobil and ERG (the owners of the oil refinery where the train left),[9] were reported to have been carrying liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).[10] Two of these exploded and caught fire.[8] Seven people were reported to have been killed when a house collapsed.[8] An eighth person who was killed was reported to have been riding a scooter on a road adjoining the railway.[10] A child was found carbonised in a car in front of the house where he lived with his parents. It is speculated that his parents put him in the car to save him and then returned to the house to save other two children.[11]

The two members of the train crew suffered minor injuries in the accident. A large area of Viareggio was damaged in the subsequent fires caused by the wagons carrying LPG self-combusting.[8] Twenty-six people were reported to have been injured in the accident.[2] The accident is the worst rail accident in Italy since the collision between two trains in Murazze di Vado near Bologna on 15 April 1978, which killed 48 people.[12] It was reported that a whole street had been destroyed in the explosion and fire.[13]

Aftermath

A state of emergency was declared by local authorities.[14] Around 1,000 residents of Viareggio were evacuated from their homes as a result of the accident.[15] Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi visited Viareggio "to take control of the situation", but he received boos and cries of "go home".[16] Dr. Enrico Petri, an eyewitness and local hospital physician, said that 36 people had been taken to Versilia Hospital in Viareggio suffering from 80–90% burns. He compared the aftermath to a terrorist attack.[13] The accident left around 100 people homeless.[14] The accident resulted in the disruption of rail services between Rome and Genoa.[16] Viareggio railway station was partially reopened on 3 July 2009.[17]

Cause

The Direzione Generale per le Investigazioni Ferroviarie,[6] a section of the Italian Minister of Infrastructure and Transport[18] opened an investigation into the cause of the accident.[19] Italian police said that the accident may have been caused by damaged tracks or a problem with the brakes on the train.[8] Italian union CGIL is reported to have blamed the decrepit state of the rolling stock;[16] the maintenance of the wagon was the responsibility of GATX.[20] The failure of an axle on the wagon that derailed is being investigated as a possible cause.[14][21] Pending the official conclusions of the commissions of inquiry the probable cause of the accident is attributable to structural failure of an axle of the carriage of the first tank wagon derailed. Italian Transport Minister Altero Matteoli informed the Italian Parliament on 1 July that a defective axle may have caused the accident.[17]

On 29 July 2009, an Extraordinary Network Meeting of the Network of National Safety Authorities was held.[22] It invited members to disseminate information related to problems related to Type A Axles to railway operators, owners and keepers of freight wagons.[23]

Prosecution

In 2017, the Court of Lucca tried thirty-three people in connection with the derailment. The first instance trial ended with ten accused acquitted and the conviction of the others, including the former Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (RFI) CEOs Mauro Moretti and Michele Mario Elia. Moretti was sentenced to seven years in prison for his role as CEO of RFI (2001-2006) but acquitted as CEO of Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane (FS) (2006-2014), while Elia was sentenced to seven and a half years.[3][24] However, the Court of Lucca imposed the highest penalties (from six to eight years) on the defendants of the companies Gatx Rail and Jungenthal, responsible for the mechanical problems that caused the accident.[25]

The first instance ruling was partially confirmed by the Florence Court of Appeal with the ruling of 20 June 2019, which also ordered the acquittal of further positions referable to the RFI Company and confirmed the acquittal of Ferrovie dello Stato and FS Logistics from administrative responsibility.[26] During 2020, all the convicts filed an appeal with the Supreme Court.[27]

With sentence of 8 January 2021, the Supreme Court confirmed the criminal responsibility for the crime of culpable railway disaster of 11 people (of which 9 belonging - at the time of the facts - to the companies responsible for maintenance activities / revision, Gatx Rail Germany, Gatx Rail Austria, Jungenthal, Cima Riparazioni; one belonging to Trenitalia and one to FS Logistica); the Court also annulled the sentence pronounced by the Court of Appeal against the positions of the former CEOs of RFI (Michele Mario Elia and Mauro Moretti, the latter also former CEO of Ferrovie dello Stato) and 3 other people, deferring all to a new appeal judgment.[28] Upon the outcome of the Supreme Court judgment, all the companies originally blamed for administrative liability were definitively acquitted.[29][30]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "Addio a Elisabeth la trentaduesima vittima". Il Tirreno (in Italian). 22 December 2009. Archived from the original on 25 December 2009. Retrieved 22 December 2009.
  2. 1 2 3 "Viareggio, salgono a 18 le vittime del disastro". Reuters (in Italian). 2 July 2009. Archived from the original on 5 July 2009. Retrieved 2 July 2009.
  3. 1 2 "Italy court sentences former railway chief to 7 years in prison". Reuters. 31 January 2017. Retrieved 1 February 2017.
  4. ↑ "Viareggio, treno esplode in stazione. E' strage in fiamme auto e palazzi: 14 morti, 3 dispersi". la Repubblica (in Italian). 30 June 2009. Archived from the original on 4 July 2009. Retrieved 1 July 2009.
  5. ↑ "Aerial footage of train blast aftermath". BBC News. 30 June 2009. Retrieved 30 June 2009.
  6. 1 2 3 "INVESTIGATION NOTIFICATION". European Railway Agency. Retrieved 22 September 2009.
  7. ↑ Ferrovie dello Stato (30 June 2009). "Grave incidente nella stazione di Viareggio" (Press release) (in Italian). Archived from the original on 3 August 2009. Retrieved 1 July 2009.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 "Italians killed as train explodes". BBC News. 30 June 2009. Retrieved 30 June 2009.
  9. ↑ "Treno esploso, almeno 14 morti" (in Italian). TGCOM. 30 June 2009. Archived from the original on 17 August 2009. Retrieved 1 July 2009.
  10. 1 2 "Deadly Train Gas Tank Explosion in Italy". Sky News. 30 June 2009. Retrieved 30 June 2009.
  11. ↑ "La tragedia dei bambini: uno salvato un altro carbonizzato in un'automobile". la Repubblica (in Italian). 30 June 2009. Archived from the original on 4 July 2009. Retrieved 30 June 2009.
  12. ↑ "Tragedia sui Binari" (in Italian). Quotidiano.net. 7 January 2004. Archived from the original on 4 July 2009. Retrieved 2 July 2009.
  13. 1 2 "Eye-witness: My cousin was killed". BBC News. 30 June 2009. Retrieved 30 June 2009.
  14. 1 2 3 "Italian train inferno kills 16". AFP. 30 June 2009. Retrieved 30 June 2009.
  15. ↑ "Rail crash inferno kills 15 in northern Italy". ITN. 30 June 2009. Archived from the original on 3 July 2009. Retrieved 30 June 2009.
  16. 1 2 3 Day, Michael (1 July 2009). "'Apocalypse' on railway in Tuscany". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 4 July 2009. Retrieved 1 July 2009.
  17. 1 2 "Italian train crash toll up to 22". BBC News Online. 3 July 2009. Retrieved 3 July 2009.
  18. ↑ "Direzione generale per le investigazioni ferroviarie e marittime - DIGIFEMA" (in Italian). Retrieved 3 September 2021.
  19. ↑ In Italy, FS is the investigating body for railway accidents Archived 4 July 2009 at the Wayback Machine
  20. ↑ "Carro sviato: la manutenzione spettava alla società proprietaria" (in Italian). Ferrovie dello Stato. Archived from the original on 4 August 2009. Retrieved 23 July 2009.
  21. ↑ "Incidente Viareggio, le foto dell'asse che ha ceduto". la Repubblica. 30 June 2009. Archived from the original on 4 July 2009. Retrieved 2 July 2009.
  22. ↑ "Extraordinary Network Meeting". European Railway Agency. Retrieved 22 September 2009.
  23. ↑ "The Network of National Safety Authorities (NSAs), convened at an extraordinary meeting on the 29th of July 2009" (PDF). European Railway Agency. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 October 2009. Retrieved 22 September 2009.
  24. ↑ "2 former railway execs convicted in freight train explosion". Fox News. 31 January 2017. Retrieved 1 February 2017.
  25. ↑ "Strage di Viareggio, confermata condanna per Moretti ed ex vertici ferrovie" (in Italian). 20 June 2019. Retrieved 3 September 2021.
  26. ↑ "Moretti get 7 yrs for Viareggio disaster". Retrieved 3 September 2021.
  27. ↑ "Strage di Viareggio, anche Moretti fa ricorso in Cassazione" (in Italian). Retrieved 3 September 2021.
  28. ↑ "Strage di Viareggio, il dispositivo della sentenza" (in Italian). August 2021. Retrieved 3 September 2021.
  29. ↑ "Viareggio manslaughter convictions quashed". Retrieved 3 September 2021.
  30. ↑ "Strage Viareggio: cade l'aggravante dell'incidente sul lavoro, prescritti gli omicidi colposi" (in Italian). 8 January 2021. Retrieved 3 September 2021.
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