Factory explosion, the witness: “It was a bomb, all in a few minutes.” Prosecutor’s office at work, what we know
According to initial findings, the explosion was caused by an industrial air conditioning system, which is located outside the warehouse and near an area that hosts facilities of companies external to Toyota.
by Mirko Billi, Andrea Sangermano and Andrea Mari
BOLOGNA – “It was a bomb“. The Toyota tragedy in the words of Pino Sicilia, union representative in the company on Via Persicetana, on the outskirts of Bologna, devastated by yesterday afternoon’s explosion. Present this morning at the press conference held today at Cgil by the heads of Fiom, Fim and Uilm, the union representative was among the first to intervene to help his colleagues who were overwhelmed by the explosion, unfortunately for two of them there was nothing that could be done. “It all happened in four minutes“, he says. “There was the explosion, I got under the table, waited for the glass to fall, we went out, we evacuated everyone”. Quinti “we went around the company, we went to see who had been hurt, if we had done a good evacuation. Then when we saw people on the ground we stopped there and started calling. After two or three minutes the company manager came down, they called 118, they turned off the gas. We are talking about three or four minutes, it’s not that there was inefficiency. It was a blast, guys”, concludes the emotional worker.
During the press conference the union representatives within the company highlighted a fact, the over 200 “near misses” reported last year, or risk situations to which we must respond. “Ours is a certified company. Toyota cares, the more we report the more they love us”, Sicilia continues. However, what happened yesterday was completely different. “It was an external boiler, it was not linked to the production sectors” explains the unionist.
“As Rls and Rsu we never had any idea that that stuff could create something like that. This is why our officials are saying to go and see why and if anyone knew about the power of this equipment. We are waiting for the competent bodies”. In recent days, he then recalls, “there was a flood, we were flooded too like all the other companies. Did this have an effect or not? We don’t know. Yesterday the heating was turned on, but again we don’t know if it had an effect or not.”
HEADLIGHTS ON AN AIR CONDITIONING SYSTEM
The investigations are just beginning and there are still many questions to answer after yesterday’s explosion at the Toyota Handling plant in Bologna, which killed two workers and injured 11 others. For example, it is still unclear whether the explosion occurred inside or outside the shed, whether the workers were victims of the same explosion or of the resulting collapses, and also whether there were further explosions after the first explosion. Just as the presence of companies external to Toyota, with which the company had a maintenance contract and to which it had assigned some spaces for the storage of equipment, will need to be investigated further. Spaces in the immediate vicinity of the explosion, which according to initial findings was caused by an industrial air conditioning system that also has some compressors inside.
All these elements are being ascertained by the Fire Brigade, Carabinieri and Local Health Authority, to whom the Prosecutor’s Office has assigned the delegation for the investigations to trace the causes of the event. Surveys and inspections are still underway to examine the area of the accident. And the testimonies of those who were present will also be examined in depth.
“At the moment we have some indications that need to be examined in depth in the coming days”, explains Massimiliano Russo, deputy director of the provincial command of the Fire Brigade, after this morning’s visit to the Toyota plant together with the deputy prosecutor of Bologna, Morena Plazzi, and the public prosecutor on duty, Francesca Rago. “The area affected by the event is outside a logistics department of the plant – explains Russo – where there are both air conditioning systems and various materials stored for use by external companies that work for Toyota. We have collected everything”.
The external companies in question, continues the Fire Brigade director, “have a maintenance contract, I believe annual, and Toyota allocates them spaces for the storage of their equipment, which are overlooking the area. We don’t know anything else at the moment, the investigations are just beginning”. The workers who were victims of the accident, however, “are Toyota workers, there is no doubt about that. They are not external workers and were working inside the warehouse” at the time of the explosion.
“We are reconstructing whether the explosion occurred outside or inside – adds Russo – we are in an initial phase of the investigation. We also have our fire-fighting unit of the Fire Brigade that is taking care not only of the collection, but also of the reconstruction of the entire environment through special devices, in order to freeze the scene and try to trace the causes”. In any case, “further inspections will be necessary”.
The damage to the structures “is significant – the Fire Brigade director reports – the explosion caused the projection of fragments that hit some of the department’s infill walls, which separated the warehouse from the outside and which collapsed, and all the various systems that serve the activity in that specific area. We will also have to investigate from a structural point of view”. Furthermore, “the offices facing them and everything that was within range of action in that area were also damaged. Some window frames collapsed, with the projection of glass and various fragments that also slightly injured some employees. The spaces dedicated to other companies also suffered the consequences of the explosion”. The areas of the plant where the accident occurred have been seized, “as is right – Russo emphasizes – to guarantee both the preservation of the places and the safety of the workers who must necessarily operate in other sectors. Therefore there must be a ban, which has been done”.
THE PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE INVESTIGATES FOR MANSLAUGHTER AND INJURIES
Manslaughter and very serious manslaughter. These, as far as we know, are the crimes hypothesized by the Bologna Public Prosecutor’s Office in the file, currently still against unknown persons, on the explosion that occurred late yesterday afternoon in the Toyota Material Handling plant in Borgo Panigale, which caused the death of two workers, 34-year-old Fabio Tosi and 37-year-old Lorenzo Cubello.
At the moment, no further details on the investigation are leaking out, even if, as far as we know, the Fire Brigade has already advanced hypotheses that the prosecutor Francesca Rago, in charge of the investigation, considers worthy of further investigation. The Fire Brigade, as well as the Carabinieri and the Local Health Authority, have been given the powers to investigate the case further. An autopsy will also be ordered on the victims’ bodies, which could provide useful data to understand the dynamics of the accident, such as the direction from which the shock wave caused by the explosion came. It is also possible that consultations will be ordered on the computer data that the investigators are securing to understand if, in the days preceding the accident, events had occurred that could have represented ‘alarm bells’. In the meantime, the Carabinieri are interviewing witnesses, including those slightly injured, and from what we have learned so far it has been ascertained that at the time of the accident there was no work in progress that was in any way dangerous, but the workers were engaged in an ordinary shift.