The town of Calenzano, on the outskirts of Florence, woke up in pain and anger. The explosion that hit the Eni warehouse yesterdayone of the largest fuel storage hubs in Tuscany, caused four deaths, 26 injuries and at least one missing.
The episode occurred during the loading operations of a tanker: a tremendous roar, heard as far as the surrounding municipalities, followed by a wall of flames and a dense column of black smoke, visible for kilometers away. The death toll has tragically increased in the last few hours, when the bodies of the two missing people were identified. Among the injured there are at least two patients in critical conditionhospitalized at the Cisanello Large Burns Center in Pisa.
The President of the Tuscany Region, Eugenio Gianispeaking after an inspection of the disaster site, confirmed the seriousness of the health situation: “We have fourteen people still in hospital, two of whom are in extremely serious conditions. Their prognosis remains confidential.” While the governor expressed closeness to families and communities, the mayor of Calenzano, visibly distressed, declared: “Our community is deeply shocked and saddened. We proclaimed city mourning to honor the memory of the victims and rally around their families. We await the results of the investigation to fully understand the dynamics of this announced tragedy”.
The Calenzano plant was not a simple warehouse. Its strategic importance was known: a crossroads of oil pipelines that connected the Eni refinery in Livorno to the hinterlanda tank of petrol, diesel, kerosene and even jet fuel for aviation. With its 170 thousand square meters and a storage capacity of approximately 160 thousand tonsthe area represented one of the plants classified as “high risk of a major accident” according to the Seveso directive, European standard introduced to prevent tragedies like the one that occurred in 1976 in the Lombardy municipality, where the explosion in a chemical plant released a toxic cloud of TCDD dioxin into the air.
In the case of Calenzano, despite the safety procedures and the adoption of emergency plans, the loading phase of the tankers was considered particularly critical. According to initial reconstructions, a liquid leak during operations may have triggered the inferno. Giani, speaking to Radio24, hypothesized: “It would appear to be a defect in the loading method of one of the tankers. Fortunately the storage towers were not involved, otherwise the consequences would have been even more devastating”.
The Prato Public Prosecutor’s Office has opened a file to investigate the causes and responsibilities of the accident. Meanwhile, Eni expressed in a note “deep sympathy to the families of the victims” and assured full collaboration with the judiciary. On the trade union front, the response was immediate: in Livorno, in front of the Eni refinery, over 500 workers gathered in an assembly and went on strike for two hours to denounce what was discovered “a silent war” in the world of workin which “attention only comes after tragedies”.
The depot, located not far from a densely populated area, with population centers, commercial facilities, hotels, schools and critical infrastructures in the immediate vicinity, it had already come under the scrutiny of environmentalists and doctors in the past. Some associations had reported the presence of toxic vapors during loading and decanting operations, denouncing an underestimated risk to public health. The findings of Arpat, the regional environmental protection agency, in the hours following the accident did not highlight any contamination that would require emergency measures on the consumption of local products. However, further investigations will be carried out on the wastewater and any medium-long term environmental impacts.
Already four years ago, in October of that time, Maurizio Marchimember of Democratic Medicine Livornohad published a detailed report on the dangers of this oil deposit. His reflections, which appeared in newspapers such as “La Nazione” and in the magazine “La Città Invisibile” of the association “Per un’altra città”, they pointed the finger right at the Calenzano structure. Marchi listed four types of risk: the possibility of catastrophic accidents such as chain explosions, devastating fires, slow and prolonged oil spills, the impact on the health of workers and surrounding residents, up to the dangers associated with the transport of fuel on the roads .
The intervention of the firefighters, the maintenance of the emergency plan and the luck of not having triggered a domino effect on other tanks they prevented the fire from turning into an even larger disaster. The environmental and health risk seems limited for now, but the image of the column of smoke rising over the roofs of Calenzano remains imprinted in the collective memory. While the city mourns its victims, the debate on the safety of plants at risk is back in the news. Even the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarellaexpressed condolences and solidarity, underlining the need to deepen responsibilities and prevent similar catastrophes in the future.
Faced with this latest tragedy, we are called to a serious moment of reflection. The energy transition towards cleaner and safer sources becomes not only an environmental choice, but an imperative to prevent places like Calenzano from continuing to live in the shadow of a potential disaster. The memory of the victims and the suffering of the injured force us to rethink industrial policies and risk management, to restore safety and trust to workers, citizens and territories.
