Murazze di Vado train disaster

At that time, nonetheless, an intense bad weather was hitting almost the whole Italian peninsula, and this caused a bridge along the Adriatic route to be heavily damaged by a seastrike.

[2] The Freccia della Laguna was on a rapid service, thus traveling at medium-high speed (about 110 km/h), when it hit the derailed engine, still askew on both tracks and balanced on the border of the ravine.

The crash forced the first four cars of Rapido 813 into the gorge: the two engines from 572 bis were lifted from their bogies, the bodies being crushed, falling to one side and coming to rest one above the other, with E.645 on top.

The Murazze di Vado disaster was the first large scale rescue operation managed by CePIS (Centrale per il coordinamento Per Il Soccorso, Central for coordination of Rescue Operations), a public organization founded after the 1974 Italicus Express bombing to provide better first aid in emergencies and improve coordination of local response services on a regional scale.

The initial rescues were brought on the disaster scene by car and truck drivers who were travelling along the A1 Motorway, which in that section is running meters aside the railway line.