Mestre bus massacre: the memory of the firefighters and the plea hearing

"I relive those images, those screams of pain and help that came from inside that damned bus. Even today I feel very strong emotions." With these words, the team leader of the Mestre fire brigade, Alessio Tanduo, recalls in a video released by the Venice Command the massacre of 3 October three years ago, when a bus from the La Linea company fell about ten meters from the upper Marghera overpass. 22 people died in the crash, all foreign tourists except the driver, and 14 others were injured. "By making space between the twisted sheets of metal - says the firefighter in the video -, with the flames licking both our clothes and the bus itself, we still managed to save human lives. This is the thought that comforts me most of all".

The hearing has been set for next week, October 7, to discuss the plea bargain requests of the seven suspects, all officials or managers of the Municipality who must answer for multiple road homicides. The sentences that will be proposed before the Venice magistrate Benedetta Vitolo are all less than two years. Opposing the possibility of an agreement is the Italian Association of families and road victims, who in the days following the tragedy had presented a complaint to the Prosecutor's Office and which today hopes to get to a hearing.

The suspects are accused of negligence for the "gap" in the guardrail which would have caused the vehicle to fall. According to what was reconstructed by the Venetian prosecutors Laura Cameli and Giorgio Gava, in fact, due to the broken steering the bus hit the guardrail for about 50 meters until, "finding a gap of about 2.40 metres" it fell below.

Of the 35 passengers on board, tourists of different nationalities who were reaching the Hu campsite in Marghera from Piazzale Roma in Venice, 22 lost their lives. The victims' families were compensated with over 20 million euros by Allianz, the bus insurance company.