The toll of Tuesday’s tragedy in Bargi continues to rise. Six people were killed in the explosion at a hydroelectric plant in northern Italy and another person remains missing, according to a new count released Thursday evening.
Firefighters said they had found two new bodies in the underground levels of the Bargi power plant located on the banks of the Suviana artificial water reservoir in the small town of Camugnano, about fifty km south of Bologna. A third body was found later Thursday, the Ansa agency reported in the evening. Around a hundred firefighters, including 12 divers, are still on site to continue the search.
Two million euros for the victims and their loved ones
The plant is managed by Enel Green Power, the renewable energy production unit of the Italian giant Enel, which has set up a fund of two million euros for the victims and their relatives.
The company explained that a fire had affected one of the two groups at the power plant in a place called Bargi. “After investigation, the Bargi plant dam basin was not damaged and is safe,” the group said. Production has been interrupted, but there has been no impact on local or national supply.
“Efficiency improvement works” were underway at the plant when the explosion occurred, according to Enel Green Power. “There was no security problem, it was an intervention planned since September 2022 (…) for a technical update”, explained Thursday the CEO of Enel Green Power, Salvatore Bernabei, quoted by the newspaper The Corriere della Sera. This work was entrusted to three major specialist companies: Siemens, ABB and Voith.
Justice is interested in the chain of subcontractors
An investigation by the Bologna public prosecutor’s office is underway and will examine, among other things, the chain of subcontractors, said Bologna prosecutor Giuseppe Amato.
At the end of 2021, Italy had 4,646 hydroelectric power stations, mainly located in the north of the country. At the end of 2021, hydroelectric plants, with a production of 45.39 terawatt hours, represented more than 14% of national consumption and 39% of the production of renewable sources.