The Viareggio massacre told 15 years later

There were a few minutes left until midnight on 29 June 2009, almost fifteen years ago, when a freight train loaded with LPG, derailed from the tracks of Viareggio station. The gas that escaped from one of the 14 carriages led to a series of explosions, the sky turned red. Thirty-two people died, some immediately, most after a slow and very long agony due to burns. There were houses next to the station. The area of ​​the city most affected is that of via Ponchielli, almost completely razed to the ground. Many of those who lived there had already gone to sleep, many were woken up by the noise of the derailment, in everyone’s memory there is the smell of gas, there are flames, the unbearable heat.

The podcast

Sunset at midnight is the podcast that retraces the news of the Viareggio massacre and also the judicial affair, in search of “truth and justice”, together with the association of relatives of the victims Il mondo che would onlus, taking a look at the issues of railway safety.

The podcast series by Paolo Buzzone and Giovanni Savarese is available for free on the main podcast platforms starting from May 29, 2024. It is an Audio Tales production. Giovanni Savarese, narrator of the podcast, explains: «It was a difficult journey, at times painful, but important. The Viareggio massacre is not in the collective memory, it was not reported by the major media, even though it turned the lives of dozens of families upside down. The sunset at midnight speaks of people, of the unstoppable force of life, of justice that is often difficult to obtain in our country, and much more.”

Marco Piagentini, who survived the Viareggio massacre on 29 June 2009, in which he lost his wife and two children, tells his story in the podcast. «I tried to scream straight away because I was desperate. You think you are strong and instead in that moment I felt naked, naked in my soul, because I couldn’t reach my children. I myself tried to fight to stay alive.”