But reaching the lower floors of the plant remains very difficult: in the meantime, the Bologna prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation for disaster and manslaughter
The search for four maintenance workers missing following the explosion that occurred on Tuesday afternoon in the Bargi hydroelectric power plant, in the Bologna Apennines, resumed on Wednesday evening after a reconnaissance that lasted several hours to understand how to safely reach the most important part of the plant. in depth, which was flooded and is still very difficult to reach.
So far, the bodies of three workers have been found, while five people are hospitalized in different hospitals. It is not yet clear what caused the explosion, whether by a transformer or an alternator in the power plant, and the investigations will only begin once the rescue operations are complete. Meanwhile, the Bologna prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation assuming the crimes of manslaughter and manslaughter.
– Read also: Rescue efforts at the Bargi hydroelectric power station are very complicated
From the outside, the hydroelectric plant, managed by Enel Green Power, is a square-based concrete structure, one story high. But the most important part of the plant extends ten floors below the water level, reaching a depth of 60 meters in the Suviana artificial basin.
Built in 1975, the power plant exploits the connection between Lake Suviana and Lake Brasimone, about 300 meters higher, through a large pipeline. The energy is produced thanks to the jump of the water in the passage between the two basins while at night, when there is less demand for electricity, the power plant’s systems “recharge” Lake Brasimone by pushing the water in the opposite direction into the pipelines thanks to a reversible turbine (i.e. which can also function as a pump).
The explosion occurred on Tuesday around 2.30pm on the eighth floor (therefore several meters underwater, considering that the tenth floor is the deepest). Part of the ceiling, which corresponds to the seventh floor slab, collapsed, a flame reached the surface and a fire broke out. Both the tenth and ninth floors are completely flooded. According to information given by rescuers, at the time of the explosion the workers were between the eighth and tenth floors. They were engaged in some extraordinary maintenance work on the plants, in particular on a turbine, which had been going on for over a year: on Tuesday the commissioning test was underway, the operation that precedes the official testing of the plant.
Already on Tuesday evening the firefighters had attempted to go down to the lower floors, but the operations were interrupted by the presence of water which does not allow rescuers to work safely: among other things on the eighth floor there is a lot of rubble , and visibility is zero.
The firefighters during the search operations for the four missing persons (Ansa/Fire Brigade)
Throughout the day on Wednesday the firefighters therefore tried to understand how to free the top three floors from the water: various reconnaissances were carried out both inside the plant and outside, from the lake, with some teams of divers . The problem was identified in a pipe that continued to discharge a lot of water into the plant. The pipeline has been closed, but the removal of the remaining water, which entered from the bottom of the plant, is not simple and is still in progress.
Several technicians arrived on site with a crane and powerful pumps, i.e. pumps used to suck and move large quantities of water. In the central part of the plant there is a square well, several meters wide, which connects all the floors. Under normal conditions it is also possible to go down to the lower floors from a flight of stairs, which is now partly flooded, and from an emergency passage which however is inaccessible. In the late afternoon the technicians lowered the pipes of the water pumps, then turned them on to bring the water to the surface.
The lake level was lowered by about one meter to allow firefighters to carry out inspections safely. The water was sampled in three points, including one inside the well, to identify the possible presence of oils and hydrocarbons. Late on Wednesday afternoon, the provincial commander of the Bologna fire brigade, Calogero Turturici, announced that “operations with personnel would soon resume, therefore the massive search on floors eight, nine and ten, where we think we will find the people involved in the accident.”
At the time of the explosion the three workers who were killed were in the turbine room on the eighth floor and were identified: they are Pavel Petronel Tanase, from Settimo Torinese (Turin), aged 45, Mario Pisano, from San Marzano di San Giuseppe (Taranto), 73 years old and Vincenzo Franchina, from Sinagra (Messina), 36 years old. The missing workers are Paolo Casiraghi, a 59-year-old employee of the ABB company; Vincenzo Garzillo, 68 year old Lab Engineering employee; Adriano Scandellari, 57 years old, employee of Enel Green Power; and Alessandro D’Andrea, employee of the Voith Hydro company.
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