There is also a Sardinian among the five victims of the shipwreck which occurred two days ago 50 miles off the coast of Bari .
Andrea Loi , a 58-year-old sailor, was originally from Tortolì but for some time he had moved to Ancona, then to Bari with his family.
He often returned to Tortolì : he had been there the last time last summer to see family and old friends. Among the relatives, someone left yesterday to reach Puglia.
THE TRAGEDY - Loi and five other crew members had left Ancona to tow a motor pontoon to Durres to carry out work in the Albanian port . Halfway there, however, the tug began to take on water and within minutes it sank . Waves up to two and a half meters high left no escape for the five sailors.
Only the commander survived , recovered during the night at sea by a Croatian merchant ship hijacked by the Bari Port Authority: he is a 63-year-old Sicilian, transferred to Bari and hospitalized in a state of shock.
In the coming days , the Public Prosecutor of Bari , which investigates the matter, will evaluate whether to arrange the autopsy on the bodies. The prosecutor Roberto Rossi and the deputy Luisiana Di Vittorio have opened a file , for the moment against unknown persons, hypothesizing the crimes of shipwreck and multiple manslaughter .
THE DYNAMICS - Structural failure, failure or impact with something at sea is not excluded, perhaps with the same pontoon they were towing, pushed by the force 5 sea. It will be difficult to recover the black box from the wreck of the tugboat, since that in that stretch of sea the seabed has a depth of one thousand meters.
"Probably - explained Admiral Vincenzo Leone, commander of the Puglia Coast Guard - the suddenness of the sinking did not allow the crew to use the rescue means" and did not even give them time to sound the alarm.
Meanwhile, as delegated by the Public Prosecutor's Office, investigators are also verifying the possible pollution due to the spill of fuel into the sea . "The tugboat - Admiral Leone explained - has full fuel crates on board. We hope that the tragedy of the people will not be joined by an emergency of environmental pollution".
The tragedy raises the issue of safety in the workplace : the transport trade unions Filt Cgil-Fit Cisl-Uiltrasporti Marche today announced a 4-hour strike by the tugs, highlighting that "the work of the seafarer-port is very risky and also pertains to the discipline of navigation safety ".
(Unioneonline)
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