Two dead after huge explosion at Eni fuel depot near Florence

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

A huge explosion at a fuel depot owned by Italian energy giant Eni has killed two people, left three more missing, and sent plumes of black smoke billowing into the skies over Tuscany, authorities said on Monday.

Firefighters battled for about two-and-a-half hours to extinguish the blaze after the late-morning explosion at the Calenzano storage and distribution facility, 20km from the city of Florence. A further nine people were injured in the blast, some of them seriously.

The explosion occurred in the tanker loading area, although the resultant fire did not reach the main fuel storage area where massive tanks store large volumes of petroleum products, including petrol, diesel and jet fuel.

About 60,000 tonnes of petroleum products pass through the facility each month, arriving from refineries before being distributed to petrol stations and airports around Italy.

Prosecutors from the nearby city of Prato said they were opening an investigation into the incident to determine criminal accountability, and that police and technical experts were to examine the site.

Local authorities have been increasingly concerned about the potential for a serious accident at the Calenzano depot. In a report two years ago, the local municipality warned of the risks of a “major accident” that could lead to the release of “dangerous substances” into the environment.

Eni said it was “fully co-operating with the judicial authorities to ascertain the dynamics and causes of the explosion of one of the tanker trucks at the loading area” and expressed sympathy for the victims.  

Sara Funaro, mayor of Florence, said that the view of the regional environmental protection agency was that the cloud had dispersed “quickly and at high altitude” so no further interventions were required.

Videos taken by commuters from the nearby highway during the blaze showed huge flames and plumes of black smoke billowing into the air. People living and working within a 5km radius of the facility received emergency phone messages urging them to stay inside with doors and windows closed.

Mariavittoria Bonomo, a teacher who lives just a few kilometres way, said her windows “shook” as she heard a “huge explosion” then saw the huge column of flames and smoke. Her husband, Lorenzo Bernardin, said he felt “the ground shaking” and what “seemed like an earthquake”. 

Trains travelling along the major Florence-Bologna rail link, which runs close to the Eni facility, were suspended, while more than a dozen buildings in the nearby area were damaged, local authorities said.

Italian labour unions called for an investigation into the incident, and demanded greater enforcement of workplace safety standards, citing the high toll of workplace accidents in the country.

‘’Once again, workers have tragically lost their lives, have been seriously injured, families have been destroyed,” said Luigi Sbarra, secretary-general of the CISL, one of Italy’s main three labour unions. ‘’All companies, large and small, must respect the rules on accident prevention, investing much more in plant maintenance, periodic checks, and worker training.”

Marco Caldiroli, president of Medicina Democratica, an association that advocates for increased workplace safety, said the magnitude of the explosion suggested “a failure of the internal safety systems to intervene in time” and their overall inadequacy.

Additional reporting by Marianna Giusti in London