VIAREGGIO – Mattarella recalls Viareggio massacre: “Unacceptable disaster”
Mattarella recalls the Viareggio massacre that cost the lives of 32 people on 29 June 2009.
Il train disaster at 11.48pm on 29 June 2009. A freight train composed of 14 tanks loaded with LPG derailed with the release of flammable material. The explosion, the enormous fire that engulfed the Viareggio station, the cars, the surrounding houses.
Viareggio commemorates its victims with a series of celebrations, starting with the Holy Mass in the Misericordia cemetery celebrated by the Archbishop of Lucca Monsignor Paolo Giulietti. Until the procession which culminates at 11.48pm with the reading of the names of the victims. Flags of public buildings displayed at half-mast.
Sergio Mattarella: “The safety in transport, as well as at workis an indicator of civilization that must prevail over any logic of profit, because it affects people’s lives. This is a lesson that must never be forgotten. On the night of June 29, 2009, Viareggio was hit by the consequences of a train disaster which, today as then, appears to us unacceptable. The images and the memory of that tragedy remain indelible”.
Then the President of the Republic: “On the fifteenth anniversary, the Repubblica is close to the family who saw their loved ones unexpectedly torn from life and who, in pain, they were able to initiate a civil procedure to ascertain responsibilities of what happened and to promote greater safety in transport everywhere. The infrastructural networks, and among these the railways, are an essential condition for the life and economic development of the country. Security is an indispensable prerequisite, as well as being a primary right of citizens and users. The established standards cannot be derogated from, indeed the level of safety must be raised through more effective controls and technologies and a general growth in awareness”.
