ROME (AP) — A fifth construction worker was confirmed dead Saturday after a concrete beam and slab collapsed. Supermarket construction site Italian officials made the announcement in Florence the day before.
“We have just received word that rescue teams have found the body of a fifth worker,” Tuscan region president Eugenio Giani said.
Search teams were working to find bodies under the rubble. Earlier, fire brigade spokesperson Luca Cali told Italian TV station RaiNews that emergency workers had recovered the body of a fourth worker.
“The mass of debris is huge,” Kari said. “Securing the site will take time.”
On Friday, a group of workers were assembling a prefabricated concrete structure for a new supermarket in Esselunga when a reinforced concrete beam collapsed onto a slab layer, which then collapsed, killing eight men, according to initial reports. It is said that he was trapped.
Rescue teams pulled up the three workers and took them to a local hospital in serious but non-life-threatening condition.
Preliminary assessments indicate the accident occurred due to a “structural collapse” of a concrete beam, which could have been caused by a misplacement or construction defect, officials said.
Florence prosecutors have ordered an investigation into the collapse, considering charges of negligence and multiple manslaughter, but no suspects have been named at this stage.
Esselunga President Marina Caprotti on Friday expressed her condolences and pledged to cooperate with the investigation. Construction work on the new store has been outsourced to a third party, she said.
Pope Francis expressed his condolences to the families of the victims in a telegram sent to Cardinal Giuseppe Vetri, Archbishop of Florence, on Saturday, expressing his “heartfelt participation in the grief of the entire community.”
Prime Minister Francis called for increased vigilance and safety in all workplaces and said he expected “further efforts by those responsible for protecting workers.”
Florence Mayor Dario Nardella declared Saturday a day of mourning in the city.
The collapse has shaken a country already reeling from a spate of worker-related deaths amid heated political debate over poor and dangerous working conditions in recent years.
Most recently, five railway workers were killed in August when they were hit by a high-speed train while performing maintenance work on the railway.
In 2021, the last year for which official data is available from the European Union statistics agency Eurostat, 601 people died at work in Italy. In the same year, it was the second highest figure in the EU after France. Across the 27 EU countries, 22.5% of fatal occupational accidents occurred in the construction sector.
Italy’s largest trade union has harshly criticized the government for failing to address workplace safety issues, particularly subcontracting standards, and announced a nationwide strike in the coming weeks.
“In 2023, 1,000 people died at work, and many of these accidents were the result of subcontracting,” said Maurizio Landini, leader of Italy’s CGIL trade union. He criticized the system, which allows large companies that win large bids to outsource work to subcontractors at lower prices.
Landini said it was Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s cabinet that “revised the procurement law and reintroduced the subcontracting cascade.”
The ruling Alliance party in turn criticized Landini, saying it was “disgusting” that he linked workplace fatalities to the government’s reintroduction of subcontracting.
“The CGIL chief ignores the fact that the new regulations were so requested by Europe that Italy is at risk of violating them, and are unrelated to this tragedy,” the party said in a statement. Stated.