Rome, gas leak in Ottavia: around ten people displaced, fear for sick people and animals

A noise, similar to a rustling, a strong smell of gas. Traffic in the entire quadrant around the train station completely blocked. This is the situation after the gas leak that has been ongoing since 2 pm this afternoon in Ottavia, northwest of Rome, near the station on the Rome-Viterbo line. While operations are still underway to secure the area, about ten people who live in neighboring buildings were quickly evacuated and left everything at home, in some cases even their animals. “I live in this red building, they told me to go out because it could be dangerous to stay inside. I’ve been out for hours, I’m worried because I don’t know when I’ll be able to return home,” says Oriana, 66. “There wasn’t even time to get anything, I left four cats inside the house and I’m worried about the gas leak,” says another resident, Elisabetta. But the inconvenience is affecting all the buildings where electricity has been cut off as a precaution. And so on the street there are many residents looking for information, a desperate 50-year-old asks when the electricity will be restored: “My concern is for my mother-in-law who has artificial oxygen and nutrition, everything runs on electricity and now she is in danger”.

The firefighters, police and municipal police intervened immediately on site, and there is also RFI staff who cut off the electricity supply at the station. But even in homes, shops and offices in the rest of the neighborhood, people were left without electricity. According to rumors circulating among the evacuees, who gathered in the rectory of the neighborhood parish, the gas leak should be resolved within a few hours but it could take two or three days to repair the damaged pipe. “From what people have told me, it could take two or three days to get back to normal. I don’t know what to do, we have to do all the 730s,” says a woman who has been working in a CAF in the area for ten years. “A friend of mine,” she adds, “took the last train that passed through Ottavia station and traveled with all the smell of gas inside the carriages, as if they had run over a bomb. Without electricity I can’t work, I hope my husband can come and pick me up with the car,” she concludes.

The displaced people were temporarily welcomed in the parish of Santi Ottavio e Compagni Martiri, a short distance from the station. “The civil protection asked us if they had a space available to welcome people, we put up the chairs and opened the bathrooms”, explain the parish priest Riccardo and the deputy Suavomir. “They also asked us if we had rooms for the evacuated people to sleep in, but we only have a small one: it’s not enough, so they decided to contact the gyms of the local middle schools, Besso and Bertolotti”. Meanwhile, the Municipality of Rome has assured that the procedures for housing assistance are ready to be activated for anyone who requests it.

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