provisional assessment and ongoing investigation

The provisional toll from the explosion in the loading area of ​​the Eni fuel depot in Calenzano, near Florence, is 2 dead, 3 missing and 9 injured. Two of the injured are very serious. The Rescue Coordination Center was gathered at the prefecture and the municipality invited citizens to keep windows closed within a radius of 5 kilometers and not to approach the explosion zone, where a very high column black smoke rose. Fear also spread to neighboring businesses, where the noise was heard “loud like a bomb.” “Once the flames are under control, it is a matter of checking the risks of pollution,” declared the president of the Tuscany region, Giani, according to whom, more than 5 hours after the explosion, the situation is under control. The chief prosecutor of Prato announced the opening of criminal proceedings to determine possible responsibilities. What happened? According to a first reconstruction, the explosion occurred following a liquid leak during tanker truck refilling operations. This is what investigators report. The area where the explosion occurred was placed under lockdown. Who are the victims The body of one of the people who died in the explosion has been identified. The victim would be part of the list of five people missing, two dead and three missing, all workers who drove the tanker trucks. The list includes a 57-year-old worker from Catania, a 62-year-old worker from Naples, a 49-year-old worker from the province of Novara, a 45-year-old worker born in Germany but Italian and a 45-year-old worker from Matera. . “Fire everywhere” “I was working, I heard an explosion and the window panes shattered in my face, injuring my forehead, fortunately not seriously. We knew this area was dangerous, but not this dangerous. » It is Nicolas Magnolfi, 29, a worker who worked this morning in a chemical company 50 meters from the accident at the Eni refinery in Calenzano, who is speaking. Nicolas said he realized “what had happened only once – he explained – I saw the fire everywhere and the cloud of smoke. Then I left immediately. » The installation The Eni Calenzano installation occupies an area of ​​170,300 square meters and here gasoline, diesel and oil (kerosene) are received, stored and shipped. These products, according to what Ispra reports on the Seveso portal – which collects the files of all industrial installations handling dangerous substances – arrive at the Calenzano depot via two oil pipelines connected to the Eni refinery in Livorno, to then be stored in cylindrical atmospheric tanks (with fixed or floating roof) awaiting shipment to the loading canopies of tank trucks. The management of tank filling and tanker loading operations is carried out via a control room. Burns In addition to the nine injured transported to various hospitals by ambulances, another ten people presented themselves independently to several hospital structures for trauma of various types, a consequence of the explosion that occurred in Calenzano, in the depot Eni. According to the information obtained, some complained of burns to the trachea, others were injured by objects thrown following the explosion which also caused the breakage of numerous windows. Still according to the information obtained, these injuries were of low severity. Most of these people would have presented themselves at the hospital in Prato, around 7, the others at that of Empoli and at the San Giovanni di Dio in Florence.