After hours of uninterrupted work by the fire brigade teams, with the support of two cranes, the remains of the bus that crashed yesterday evening from an overpass in Mestre were removed . Nothing remains of the practically new electric vehicle that it was. And that yesterday, while transporting dozens of tourists from Venice to a campsite in Marghera, it tore down the guardrail and fell from the overpass, from a height of fifteen metres, catching fire on impact.
21 people died on board, including two children - a newborn of a few months and a 12 year old - and a minor girl. All the victims have been identified : nine Ukrainian citizens, 4 Romanians, 3 Germans, two Portuguese, a Croatian, a South African and the only Italian, the bus driver.
Fifteen people were injured, five of them in serious condition. They are all foreigners: at the Mestre hospital, one of the hospitals where they were transferred, a reception service and a room dedicated to family members have been set up.
The rescuers - around sixty fire brigade vehicles arrived on site - worked non-stop throughout the night in front of an apocalyptic scene: «A surreal situation - said one of them - I have never seen so many people ready to give a hand".
THE RECONSTRUCTION – What happened in the minutes preceding the massacre is still a mystery : the Venice Public Prosecutor's Office has opened a case for the massacre.
The colleagues of the driver driving the vehicle were in shock: Rizzotto, originally from Conegliano but resident in Tezze sul Brenta , was an expert driver, they say, who had been in the business for 7 years. He was an employee of Martini Bus, which had rented the vehicle to the La Linea company with which it had a contract for the transport of tourists in Venice. At the time of the accident, he had picked up the tourists in the historic center and was taking them back to the campsite in Marghera. From what appears to be he had started work 90 minutes earlier.
«The bus was new (it had been inaugurated a year ago, in October 2022, ed.) and he was good» claims Massimo Fiorese, CEO of La Linea. A video seems to support the hypothesis of the illness : «You can see the bus, a very heavy vehicle because it is electric - says Fiorese - just before falling from the overpass. The vehicle arrives, slows down, brakes. He's almost at a standstill when he breaks through the guardrail ." Guardrail which, Fiorese accuses, "from the images of the videos we have seen is almost a railing".
THE VIDEO – Among the videos being examined by the investigators is that of the "Smart control room" of the Municipality of Venice: the camera is pointed at the base of the ramp that leads from Mestre to Venice, and portrays the top of the overpass, in the section descent towards the slip road for the A4 motorway. You notice the bus alongside another, presumably stopped at the traffic light which turns left, towards Marghera, and which has the indicator on. Immediately afterwards we see the vehicle bend and fall, while the other suddenly activates the stop sign. No other vehicles can be seen.
"We are working on the dynamics of the accident which saw the bus touch and slide along the guardrail for about fifty metres, and finally, with a further push to the right, fall to the ground", said the Venice Prosecutor Cherchi, making the point. “There are no signs of braking, nor contact with other vehicles,” he added.
«The first to provide help was the bus driver who was flanked, untouched, by the crashed vehicle. When raising the alarm - he underlined - he also threw one of his fire extinguishers towards the fallen bus, which was giving off flames". Precisely the testimonies exclude that the crashed bus was traveling fast . «The witnesses - added Cherchi - said that he was going slowly, the road section is initially uphill and in any case, objectively, it does not allow high speeds. However, we will receive data to certify this too."
(Unioneonline/D)