5 staff died on Monday afternoon whereas working in a sewer related to a water therapy plant within the city of Casteldaccia close to Palermo, Sicily, based on firefighters who recovered the our bodies. A sixth employee was critically injured and in intensive care, native officers mentioned.
Girolamo Bentivoglio, chief of firefighters in Palermo, mentioned the employees had breathed in hydrogen sulfide, a gasoline usually current at waste therapy crops that’s poisonous in excessive concentrations. Ranges have been so excessive on the web site the place the employees have been killed, “that fatality is quick,” Mr. Bentivoglio mentioned in a televised interview on RaiNews24, the nationwide broadcaster’s information channel.
The accident raised a brand new spherical of concern over the incidence of office deaths in Italy. In April, seven staff have been killed in an explosion in a hydroelectric plant close to Bologna, whereas 5 died in Florence throughout the building of a grocery store in February.
In keeping with the European statistics company Eurostat, Italy ranks eighth amongst European nations in deadly accidents at work, with an incidence of two.66 per 100,000 employed, which is larger than the European Union common of 1.76, however decrease than France’s 3.32.
“Had they adopted all of the precautions, all the protection measures, together with private protecting tools, we wouldn’t have been confronted with this state of affairs,” Mr. Bentivoglio mentioned.
According to Inail, the Nationwide Institute for Insurance coverage Towards Accidents at Work, there have been 191 work-related deaths within the first three months of 2024.
“The tragedy of Casteldaccia responds to a sample that has been repeated too usually in current months,” the leaders of three Sicilian commerce unions mentioned in a joint assertion published by Italian news outlets.
The causes of the accident must be verified, in addition to the tasks of the businesses concerned and the query of whether or not security laws had been complied with, the unions mentioned.
Whereas office deaths continued to happen, the workplaces that monitored office security remained understaffed, they added.
“Sicily as soon as once more mourns its useless within the office,” they wrote.
In a submit on the social community X, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy referred to as for “full light to be shed on this tragedy.”
The Italian president, Sergio Mattarella, mentioned “this newest unacceptable office bloodbath,” should serve to reiterate the necessity for widespread dedication involving unions, entrepreneurs and establishments, the Italian information company ANSA reported.
The 5 staff who died Monday have been finishing up work for Amap, which manages the built-in water service — together with water purification and distribution for residential use, and waste water therapy — for the Metropolis of Palermo and the smaller municipalities that gravitate across the Sicilian capital. Solely one of many 5 staff was an Amap worker; the others labored for a corporation that had subcontracted the work, Italian information media reported.
Giovanni Di Giacinto, the mayor of Casteldaccia, mentioned in a phone interview that investigations into the accident have been underway. “It’s an immense tragedy,” he mentioned.
