38 Die When Block Of Flats Collapses

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29004, 18 September 1959, Page 11

38 Die When Block Of Flats Collapses

(Rec. 11 p.m.) BARI (Southern Italy), September 17. Thirty-eight bodies were recovered early today from the rubble of a five-storey apartment house which collapsed at Barletta yesterday. Another 25 persons were injured.

The last of the dead recovered last night were found by hundreds of troops, police, firemen and monks who searched under the glare of arc lamps.

Some of the bodies were completely unrecognisable.

President Giovanni Gronchi, of Italy, is to visit the disaster scene today. One man, Gennaro Ortonzo, was said to have lost his wife and nine sons when the six-month-old building crumbled and collapsed just after the Rome-Bari express roared past on an adjoining railway line. Last night thousands of people watched the rescue work in a silence broken only by the wail of police and ambulance sirens, and by screams from distraught onlookers when they recognised the bodies of relatives. A warrant has been issued for the arrest of Francesco Lombardi, the designer of the block. Police also arrested four persons on charges of stealing or looting from the wreckage. Reuters said tenants of the building, which contained 24 flats, first noticed cracks in the walls several days ago and notified the builder. The building was of five storeys and 126 persons were said to be living in it. One tenant said plaster fell from his roof early in the morning and he went off to warn the builder. He was only a few yards from his home as the express roared by and the building swayed and collapsed into a heap of rubble All his family was killed.