Building collapses in Saviano, two children and two women dead: body of elderly woman also found

Firefighters extracted the body of an elderly woman from the rubble of the collapsed building in Saviano, in the province of Naples. With the recovery of the woman, the grandmother of the three children involved in the collapse, search and rescue operations have ended. The final toll is four dead.

Seen from above, the scene is apocalyptic: drones render images of a collapsed, devastated building. And one seems to imagine that deafening noise, 'like the bang of a jet plane', which at 7.05 a.m. shattered the sleepy Sunday morning of Saviano, a village of 15,000 inhabitants about 40 minutes from Naples. The toll of that horrendous deflagration, probably due to a gas leak, is dramatic: two children aged 4 and 6 died, and with them their mother. Another little brother and his father were injured, the man seriously. The death of the 80-year-old grandmother was only ascertained hours later with the discovery of the body. Basically, an entire family was destroyed.

The explosion occurred in Via Tappia, number 5. This is an area on the immediate outskirts of the historic centre. It is the Masseria Carlona district. In that building lives the Zotto family: on the mezzanine floor Antonio Zotto, 40, and his wife Vincenza Spadafora, 41, with their children Gennaro, 2, Autilia Pia, 4, and Giuseppe, 6. On the first floor is his mother, Autilia, in her 80s. The investigations ordered by the Nola public prosecutor's office (the head of the office, Marco Del Gaudio, has arrived at the scene) will establish exactly what happened: but the absolute most credited hypothesis is that there was a gas leak. And then the explosion. "It sounded like the bang of a supersonic plane. We realised it was a collapse when a huge cloud of dust rose up,' says one of the people who arrived on the scene immediately afterwards. And the mayor, Vincenzo Simonelli, thought it was 'the fires of a patronal festival. Then the marshal of the carabinieri phoned me and told me that, unfortunately, that was not the case'.

The deflagration devastated the area, also causing damage to some adjacent houses: two families were ordered to evacuate because glass and window frames were shattered. Among the first to intervene were the Saviano station carabinieri. In the area, in fact, there was a patrol car engaged in routine checks. And when the soldiers heard the roar, they immediately headed for Via Tappia. It was a brigadier who was the first to cross the threshold of the house, to raise the alarm and then stay to dig along with the fire brigade and other rescuers. Within minutes, hundreds of people gathered around the building. Everyone started digging, by all means, and even with their bare hands. The first to be extracted, fortunately alive, were father Antonio and his youngest son Gennaro. The man is in serious condition at the Cardarelli hospital, while good news comes from the Santobono hospital, where the little one was rushed to, he has only suffered a fractured femur, nothing serious, he will pull through. But along with them, the body of Autilia Pia, only four years old, is also recovered. And from Via Tappia, shortly afterwards, more bad news continued to arrive: the body of 6-year-old Giuseppe was also pulled out. He didn't make it.

From under the rubble, the two women who are missing do not answer the rescuers' calls. The fire brigade deployed specialised teams and sophisticated equipment, which after several hours identified one of the two missing women: she was not breathing. The corpse, which at first seemed to be that of the elderly woman, was instead identified by family members as that of Vincenza, the mother of the three children. The search for 80-year-old Autilia is still ongoing. The whole community of Saviano has rallied around a family that was known - Antonio worked in a supermarket, she was a housewife - and well liked. Mayor Simonelli is shaken. He has been on the spot for hours - even Prime Minister Meloni called him from the US to be updated on the situation, express his and the government's condolences and the institutions' closeness - and says: "The rescuers are doing a great job".