Three construction workers fell to their deaths in Naples this morning when the elevator platform they were working on, positioned 20 meters high, overturned. The men, employed by a company refurbishing the roof of a seven-story building in the Arenella district, plunged into the void. This tragedy adds to a grim toll of workplace fatalities, which today claimed another victim in Brescia, prompting Cardinal of Naples Don Mimmo Battaglia to thunder that it is time to shout “Enough!” Battaglia declared it “unacceptable to leave home to earn your bread and not return,” stressing that “work cannot become a condemnation, a danger, a mortal risk.” He warned against calling such fatalities “workplace deaths,” stating the term “dirties our consciences.”
The victims – Vincenzo del Grosso, 54, of Naples; Ciro Pierro, 62; and Luigi Romano, 67, from Calvizzano and Arzano in the province – had a ritual morning coffee at a bar near the site. The bar owner, who had chatted and joked with two of them just beforehand, expressed disbelief: “It’s impossible… We were talking, joking… and now…”. Residents in the upscale Arenella area near Vomero are stunned. A local merchant who heard “a thud and then screams” from the building around 9:25 AM and was among the first on the scene described it as “heartbreaking.”
The trio was at the seventh-floor level when the cabin of the elevator platform, meant to take them to the roof, tilted. They fell, crashing onto the paved courtyard inside the building complex. Despite immediate calls for an ambulance and attempted rescue efforts, nothing could be done. Police and Naples prosecutors Antonio Ricci (coordinator of the “work and professional negligence” section) and Stella Castaldo are investigating, opening a case file. The focus is on the elevator structure, particularly the metal framework it ascends. Investigators will assess if the structure, whose uppermost section visibly gave way causing the cabin to overturn, was adequate to bear the weight of the platform carrying the three workers and a roll of bitumen, and whether all safety protocols were followed.
“This is a tragedy for the families, for Naples. Workers who enter construction sites must leave alive. Enough is enough,” said Gennaro Di Caprio, head of the Filca Cisl union in Naples, to which the victims belonged. Di Caprio rushed to the scene with other union leaders, voicing worker anger. “Safety must not and cannot be considered optional; more inspections are needed,” stated Giuseppe Mele of Fillea Cgil. Giovanni Sgambati of Uil Campania denounced the incidents as “not accidents, but the vile greed for profit at the expense of safety.”
Naples Mayor Gaetano Manfredi called it “a day of mourning,” but stressed “we cannot and must not resign ourselves.” He reiterated to businesses, institutions, and unions “a concrete commitment to stop workplace deaths. We need more safety, more inspections, and more training. We are ready to do everything necessary and required.” This call for “more safety, inspections, and training” was echoed across political lines on a day when the “silent slaughter” extended beyond Naples. In Bagnolo Mella, Brescia province, a 69-year-old man died after being crushed by a forklift inside a construction site. The exact circumstances are under reconstruction, but initial reports indicate he was run over by the forklift, which was on a truck and was to be used to deliver a load of wood to a private home.