VIAREGGIO. It was the evening of a slow beginning of summer, that of June 29, 2009 in Viareggio, when a train loaded with LPG – 14 tanks – derailed shortly before midnight as it entered the station. One of the tanks overturned on the tracks and was torn open. A blue cloud of gas insinuated itself up to the houses of via Ponchielli and via Porta Pietrasanta, Terminetto neighborhood, and transformed into fire, destruction, rubble, mourning, wounds from indelible burns. Less than a year later, on April 24, 2010, the families of the victims who lost wives, sons/daughters, brothers, sisters, grandchildren gathered at the Viareggio Congress Center to create an association that would keep them together. As has been happening for 15 years now. Daniel Rombi, who lost her daughter in the Viareggio massacre Emanuela Menichetti, 21 years old, 40 days of agony due to the burns she suffered, was its first president. Then the role of her passed to Marco PiagentinI, remained between life and death for months while his family and that of his wife, Stefania Maccinimourned the death of the woman and two of her children, Luca and Lorenzo, aged 5 and 2i. Now Rombi has returned to lead the association on a 15th anniversary that still has the bitter taste of waiting, that for the reasons for the second ruling of the Court of Cassation.
Not even a year after the massacre, the last victim died on Christmas Eve 2009: what brought you to the Congress Center?
“More than one person had explained to me how important it was for us, the families of the victims, to unite. I didn’t understand. Then, on January 17, 2010, there was a meeting at the Town Hall with the prosecutors: Aldo Cicala, who headed the Lucca prosecutor’s office, and Beniamino Deidda, chief prosecutor of Tuscany. Mauro Moretti, who was the CEO of the Railways at the time, had stated that he would not activate their insurance because what had happened was not the Railways’ fault. I spoke up for the first time in public and said: “if someone falls in my house because I have a broken tile, I am responsible because it is my house.” It was so clear, in my grief as the mother of a lost daughter. That was the day that gave birth to everything. Then, at the cemetery, I met the mother of Stefania Maccioni, Piagentini’s wife. She told me that her son Andrea was angry and didn’t know what to do. And I asked if I could go and visit him. Andrea had made a poster with his phone number. It seemed like such a beautiful thing, so big. When I met him, I understood that he had the same anger as me, an anger that has not yet passed. We started to hear from each other, to see each other. At that point I wanted to know what had happened. I wanted to know why my daughter had died. I had promised her but, little by little, it became a civil responsibility, which concerned all of Viareggio.
And you never stopped: 15 years on the road, Viareggio always with you.
«We went everywhere. In Lovere for the evidentiary incident, three times in Brussels, we met the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella and the Pope. We followed all the hearings, from the first instance to the Cassation-bis. We have been to Rome again and again, to L’Aquila for the anniversaries of the earthquake, to Genoa for the collapse of the Morandi bridge, to Turin, alongside the mothers of the victims of the Thyssen fire. We didn’t accept the compensation money because it was the only way to get to the truth and a shred of justice. It didn’t stop us even being told that it wasn’t the way to do it because mothers who have lost a child have to stay at home and cry. The defenders of the Railways defendants argued that the president of the first instance trial would have been influenced by the mobilization. Viareggio embraced the families of the victims who are his people. We people from Viareggio have this specialty: knowing how to welcome, embrace, accompany. I asked for help and solidarity, but I did it because I knew I would receive it. We need them.”
September 9, 2011, Festa dell’Unità in Genoa, face to face with Moretti. The photo is one of those that you don’t forget. What did you say to each other?
«Everything there was to say is in that look. Few words, very precise. I say “We want the truth”. He replies: “Us too. I have survived 53 proceedings unscathed.” I reply: “not from Viareggio”. And he didn’t get away unscathed. The harshness of that photo is all in those words.”
