Disaster and manslaughter are the crimes hypothesized in the investigation opened by the Bologna prosecutor's office into the massacre at the Enel Green Power power plant in Suviana: 3 workers confirmed dead, 4 missing for whom there is increasingly less hope and 5 injured hospitalized with burns. Checks on testing and subcontracting, the hypothesis of human error. Union anger against work that still kills: 'We don't know who the victims worked for'. All of Bologna in the streets to say enough to deaths at work. This is the appeal of the mayor Matteo Lepore, who invites the city to join the demonstration that CGIL and UIL have organized today. A demonstration called for some time, as in all other Italian cities, on a platform that also has workplace safety at its centre, together with tax reform. But after the Suviana massacre, it will take on an unexpected and particular value in Bologna.
Search for missing persons resumed, 'little hope'
The search for the four missing people from the Suviana power station resumed at eight in the evening, after a day spent re-establishing safety conditions to allow the intervention of the firefighters. To do this, a pipeline was made safe which, in the event of a valve breaking, risked causing the rescuers to be overwhelmed by the water. The oils present in the tank at the center of operations were removed and then the drainage pumps came into play to eliminate the water that had entered the plant since last night. To help the firefighters, Enel also lowered the level of the Suviana basin by at least one metre, although it is not excluded that it then continued. Now we will continue throughout the night at levels minus 8, minus 9 and minus 10. With what hopes, no one has excessive illusions: "We are not working with much hope of finding the missing alive, the scenario before us does not give us this idea", Luca Cari, communication manager of the Fire Brigade, had already said early in the morning.
For now, however, the toll remains the same as the first day: three dead, four missing, five injured. Today some family members of the people involved also entered the station. The Emilia-Romagna Region and Enel Green Power have activated psychological support for the victims' relatives. Alongside the help and the pain, however, it is also the time for questions. Starting from one: what caused the explosion during the testing, which then led to the collapse of the attic and the flooding of the rooms? There is no definitive answer for now, but an investigation will have to find it. But the spotlight was also focused on the situation of the subcontracts that revolved around the works involving the construction site. It must be said that, if at first the institutions spoke of all external employees, it now emerges that among the injured, missing and unharmed workers at least six were Enel Green Power employees. However, the company does not provide precise numbers.
These are the most debated issues in the long procession of institutions and political and trade union representatives to the Bargi power station, in the municipality of Camugnano. The Minister of Labour, Marina Elvira Calderone, calls for prudence: "I believe that it is premature to describe a dynamic of the facts that is not yet ascertained and above all to launch, as I have seen someone do, into evaluations and statements on what could have been the causes of the accident," he said. But the CGIL of Bologna, with its secretary Michele Bulgarelli, goes on the attack: "We don't know which companies employed the external workers, it's serious." Even the president of the Emilia-Romagna Region, Stefano Bonaccini, notes: "I certainly see that even on state subsidiaries, from the railways a few weeks ago to this affair, perhaps I think some more attention should be paid". Democratic Party secretary Elly Schlein is harsh: "Another massacre of workers, we can no longer accept this happening." Enel Green Power, for its part, defends itself with its CEO Salvatore Bernabei, who recalls how the power plant had been shut down since 2022 for the technological updating of supply, assembly and testing works: "We had chosen among the best companies, the best companies in the electric and hydroelectric field: Siemens, Abb, Voith". In short, "when I turn to a contractor, the contractor is synonymous with prestige and seriousness". And what about subcontracting? "You should ask this question to the contractors, who in turn can turn to other specialists, because the work we were doing here is work that can only be done by specialists." Those in progress were technological update works, "in particular we were carrying out the testing on the second group. The tests on the first group had already been carried out in recent weeks and were already concluded".