by Stefania Fumo
ROME, Aug. 6 (Xinhua) -- Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said he will visit the sites of two deadly road crashes that occurred Monday, one in the northern city of Bologna and one near the southern city of Foggia, and caused over a dozen fatalities and wounded scores of people.
"Tomorrow I will be in Bologna and in Foggia, where two extremely serious and fatal accidents have occurred, to bring the sympathies of the entire government to the wounded and to the victims' families," Conte wrote on Facebook.
The premier went on to thank "the police, firefighters, rescuers, local and regional authorities, and the Civil Protection Agency."
Italy's Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio also took to Twitter to comment on "two tragic accidents today in Bologna and Foggia. My thoughts go out to all the victims and their relatives... I thank the police and all those who intervened and are rescuing and assisting."
Fellow Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini tweeted: "Our thoughts are with the victims and the wounded in the terrible explosion (in Bologna)", adding "a heartfelt thank you to the 100 fire fighters who promptly rushed to the scene."
Around 2 p.m. local time in Bologna, a tanker truck carrying flammable material collided with a truck on a busy ring road intersection with a highway, exploding into a massive fireball that caused an overpass to collapse, torching all the parked cars in the vicinity and sending a column of black smoke towering into the sky.
One person was confirmed dead and scores were injured by the flames as well as flying glass and debris caused by the shockwave of the explosion, including three police officers and 11 Carabinieri military police officers, a prefecture official told TGcom 24 private broadcaster, contradicting previous reports of two fatalities.
RAI News 24 public broadcaster reported that the number of the injured had topped 100. Over 250 rescuers were on the scene, the Red Cross tweeted.
"Our condolences on behalf of the entire city to the families of those who lost their lives," Bologna Mayor Virginio Merola tweeted, without specifying the number of fatalities. "Our thoughts are with the injured, which include several rescuers who did not hesitate in the face of the risks they were running."
Near Foggia in the southern Puglia region in the tip of Italy's boot, 12 migrant farm laborers died and three were injured when a van carrying them home after the day's work collided with a truck and overturned on a rural road, firefighters and local media reported Monday.
"12 dead and three wounded," firefighters tweeted, along with a photo of the twisted wreckage of the van.
RAI News 24 public broadcaster showed ambulances and a fire truck at the crash site on a two-lane rural road, adding that the victims were all migrants. According to ANSA news agency, 14 laborers had been packed into the van, which only had capacity for eight people.
Day laborers are often bused to and from the fields by gangmasters, who recruit them off the streets to work pick fruit and produce in the fields for a few euros an hour. The practice of exploiting laborers, or gangmastering, was outlawed in Italy in 2016.
The incident follows on a deadly crash Saturday also in Foggia province, in which four African day laborers aged in their early 20s died and another four were seriously injured on their way home from work when a truck carrying tomatoes crashed into the van they were traveling on.
ANSA quoted Salvini, who also serves as interior minister, as saying in reference to both the deadly accidents in Puglia that he will "order law enforcement sweeps throughout Italy to combat exploitation and gangmastering," adding his "prayers for the victims and their families."
CGIL trade union tweeted a photo of the overturned van, saying: "We demand justice for all the exploited and invisible laborers".
Unions and local anti-mafia and civic associations have called a demonstration to be held Wednesday in Foggia, to demand justice for the victims and workplace safety and protections for day laborers.
