Italy mourns the victims of the accident which, in the Turin area, saw five workers run over by a regional train, but very, very few, remember an almost identical disaster that occurred 45 years ago in Villasor.

The Forgotten Incident saw four workers lose their lives as they "earned their bread" on the silted tracks. No commemorative plaque, neither at the station, nor in the respective municipalities of origin of the victims.

It was June 19, 1978. Two crews, each made up of four workers, were present on the closed tracks, working simultaneously on the stretch towards Sassari and the one towards Cagliari. They wore blue coveralls, no reflective vests, and they wouldn't even have oil lamps.

During the night, the driver of the train saw nothing that made him wonder whether he should slow down and continued his journey at 130 kilometers per hour. The balance of the accident was tragic: four dead, disastrously run over and dragged by the locomotive which managed to stop only after half a kilometre. A massacre.

Those who lost their lives were Gianni Olivieri, 33 years old born in Scilla and resident in San Gavino, Giovan Battista Melis, 35 years old from Pabillonis, Salvatore Carta, 37 years old from Nurachi and Salvatore Ortu, just 22 years old, from Orotelli.

Maurice Pilloni