Tragedy struck overnight in northern Italy, where five rail workers were killed after being hit by a train.
A team of seven people arrived at the site at approximately 10pm on Wednesday (11pm local time) to replace some of the rail tracks.
Approximately one hour later, an empty passenger train travelling on the Turin-Milan track and directed to the deposit hit, dragged for hundreds of metres, and killed five of the men working one kilometre away from the train station of Brandizzo, a town in the metropolitan area of Turin.
The other two men on the site managed to escape and remained unharmed, but were taken to hospital in a state of shock alongside the train conductor, also unharmed.
The train, which included the locomotive and 11 empty carriages, was travelling at 160km/h, the local police force said.
Paolo Bodoni, the mayor of Brandizzo, described the incident as a “huge tragedy” and told news agency AGI an emergency worker had described to him a “chilling scene, with human remains across 300 metres”.
Mr Bodoni, who visited the site of the incident, also said: “The information immediately provided to me suggests there was a lack of communication between the team and those who had to communicate the passage of the train, but we need to evaluate what truly happened.”
The high speed at which the train was travelling is also something that will need to be looked into, the mayor said.
An investigation into the incident has been launched, the mayor added.
On Thursday morning, local authorities named the five victims, the youngest of whom was aged only 22.
A witness, part of a group of youngsters who overnight found themselves near the site of the incident, recalled having heard at the time of the deadly impact a long hiss and the noise created by stones hitting the cars in a nearby parking.
The youngster told Italian daily La Stampa: “We headed to see what had happened and saw a big chunk of the train near the vans.
“We moved it and found human remains.”
The train, the newspaper wrote, was located a few metres ahead.
The incident prompted the partial closure of the key Turin-Milan train line, with cancellations expected to impact trains throughout the morning.
