Fisherman Sean Michieli dies, his wife Gabriela Querino is missing after an accident in the lagoon

He died, the doctors declared his death after six hours had passed to complete the assessment process. She is missing in the Venice lagoon, beaten inch by inch by the Carabinieri and firefighters. The tragedy of Sean Michieli and Gabriela Querino, married for three months, began just before six yesterday morning, when the small boat they were traveling on collided with a water taxi off the island of Tessera, a short distance from the airport of the Veneto capital.

No one had any illusions about the epilogue since early yesterday afternoon. The investigations to declare the 25-year-old, a fisherman for generations, dead, began this afternoon and concluded after 9pm. The searches for the 26-year-old of Brazilian origins, immediately infected by her husband with a passion for this profession, were suspended at sunset. For several hours yesterday, it was not certain whether both were on board.

But Michieli's family said that the two were almost inseparable on the boat and that therefore, in all probability, they had also gone out together yesterday, leaving from Burano, where they live, in search of bait. And, when on Saturday evening the firefighters fished out the wreck of the small boat, the Carabinieri found some elements that suggested his presence on board.

For now, however, Querino has not been found. The Fire Brigade deployed divers from the regional unit, the helicopter and some jet skis to support the search operations. And tomorrow the divers and helicopter will be back in action, because so far it hasn't been enough. The waters of the lagoon are muddy, it is difficult to orient yourself even within a few meters and, to further increase the difficulty coefficient of the searches, there is the alternation of high and low tide. Last year, a fisherman's boat was found off the coast of Punta Sabbioni and the fruitless search continued for weeks.

Meanwhile, the Venice Public Prosecutor's Office is taking action on the incident. Reconstructing the dynamics of the crash with certainty is not easy, because the only witness is the taxi driver. Before dawn, in the darkness and fog of the Lagoon, no one but him saw anything. And obviously there are no cameras. It is therefore difficult to assign blame and responsibility. The Prosecutor's Office opened a file which, following Michieli's death, contemplates the crime hypothesis envisaged by article 589 bis, which regulates road homicide and nautical homicide.

For the Michieli family, what is looming in these hours is a second tragedy that occurs in the same waters on which they have earned their food for generations. In 2007 his uncle Endrius, who was 19 years old, died in a collision between his punt and a barge carrying fuel. The accident occurred a short distance from Fondamente Nove, in front of the cemetery island of San Michele.

At that moment a violent storm was underway, accompanied by gusts of wind. Nineteen years later, Sean's heart has stopped beating on a hospital bed on the mainland while his wife, who never knew him, is missing in the same waters.