The body of Emilio Franco Pezzotta, a 71-year-old resident of Palazzolo sull’Oglio who – on the afternoon of Thursday 27 June – was swept away by a landslide in Valdaveto, in the municipality of Ironworks in the province of Piacenza.
Rescuers dug for a long time to free his body, buried under three cubic meters of rocks and debris. Obviously there was nothing to be done, the 118 health workers could only confirm his death.
Retired after working for many years as a metalworker, Pezzotta was originally from Gorlago (BG), but lived in Mura di Palazzolo. In Valdaveto he had a second home where he spent his holidays.
The dynamics of the accident
From an initial reconstruction, it seems that – in those dramatic moments – the 71-year-old was with his partner, who remained unharmed but understandably in shock. It seems that he was trying to free the flow of a stream from some branches with a chainsaw, when the landslide buried him under the eyes of the woman, who immediately raised the alarm to 112.
The fire brigade teams from the Piacenza provincial command and the Bobbio detachment intervened on site. The 118 operations center of Parma activated the nursing staff in station in Farini, the Red Cross operators of Marsaglia, the Alpine rescue and the air ambulance that took off from the Ospedale Maggiore of the ducal city.
In the meantime, the Drago helicopter was taken off from Bologna, which arrived in Piacenza to take on board two specialized Usar (urban search and rescue) firefighters and took off again to reach the site of the accident. To assist the rescue operations, a team of firefighters was mobilized with an excavator and photoelectric lights. The operations to remove the landslide material were difficult and complicated: when the body was found, Pezzotta was already lifeless.
Source: ilpiacenza.it
