A Romanian worker who was trapped for hours under rubble in Rome after the partial collapse of a medieval tower near the Colosseum was rescued by emergency services on Monday night, local authorities said.
The rescue operation for the worker was launched after parts of the 29-metre (95ft) high Torre dei Conti crashed to the ground on at least two occasions, videos posted on social media showed.
Rome’s police chief Lamberto Giannini said the man was “a serious condition” and had been taken to hospital.
The first tower collapse had happened at about 10.30am (GMT), the second about 90 minutes later.
RM Block
Clouds of dust came billowing out of the windows, along with the sound of collapsing masonry. The second incident took place while firefighters were working on the structure with aerial ladders. None of the firefighters were injured.
“The rescue operation took a long time because every time a part of the worker’s body was freed, further collapses occurred, burying him again under the rubble,” Mr Giannini said.
A second worker, also Romanian, was pulled out almost immediately and hospitalised with serious but not life-threatening head injuries, while two more workers suffered minor injuries and declined hospital treatment.
Witnesses reported hearing a loud bang and seeing clouds of dust. One told Corriere della Sera: “I saw a worker fall.”
Firefighters flew a drone through a window to inspect the site.
One worker inside at the time of the first collapse said he escaped from a balcony. “It was not safe. I just want to go home,” said the man, white dust covering his uniform, who gave his name as Ottaviano and his age as 67.
Elena, from the UK, who like others did not want to give her last name, works at Shamrock, a pub with views of the tower from its outside seating area. She said she had been preparing to open the pub when the first collapse happened.
“It felt a bit like an earthquake,” she said. “I saw a man trying to get out by walking down the scaffolding – I didn’t realise people were inside working on it.”
She said people living in the apartments opposite rushed on to the street when they heard a loud bang and felt their building shake.
Meanwhile, Caterina, who was born in the Italian capital, was among the large crowd of onlookers gathered at the scene. “I have never experienced anything like this in central Rome before,” she said.
Queen Paglinawan (27) was working in a nearby gelato shop when she heard two loud noises in quick succession. “I was working and then I heard some like falling, and then I saw the tower collapse in a diagonal way,” said Paglinawan, as yet another collapse occurred in the background.
The area of the Forum and Piazza Venezia, which is continuously packed with tourists and traffic, was cordoned off. Mayor of Rome Roberto Gualtieri and Italy’s culture minister Alessandro Giuli were at the scene.
The Torre dei Conti was built in the 13th century by Richard Conti, brother of Pope Innocent III, as a fortified residence for his family. It was damaged in an earthquake in 1349 and there were collapses in the 17th century.
The restoration works are being financed by funds from the EU’s post-pandemic recovery fund in order to make the building more secure. - The Guardian, AFP, Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report
