List of rail accidents in Italy

This is a list of the most serious rail-related accidents (excluding intentional acts) that occurred in Italy.

20th century

1940s

• 1944 Balvano train disaster, it was the deadliest railway accident in Italian history and one of the worst railway disasters ever. ^{[1] [2]} It occurred on the night between 2–3 March 1944 in Balvano, Basilicata. Over 500 people in a steam-hauled, coal-burning freight train (mostly stowaways) died of carbon monoxide poisoning during a protracted stall in a tunnel. ^[3]

1950s

• 1957 Codogno rail crash, The Codogno rail crash happened at Codogno, Italy, in the early evening of 9 December 1957. Fifteen people lost their lives, and at least 30 were seriously injured.

1960s

• 1961 Fiumarella rail disaster, The Fiumarella rail disaster was one of the most serious incidents in the history of the Italian railways. It occurred at about 7.45 am on 23 December 1961, at the Fiumarella viaduct, near Catanzaro, in the region of Calabria, southern Italy. The accident occurred as the train was passing over the curved Fiumarella viaduct, about an hour after departing from Soveria Mannelli for Catanzaro at 6:43 am. The trailer derailed from the track, due to the rupture of the tram type draw hook, and plunged into the river below after a falling about 40 m (131 ft). Inside the trailer there were 99 passengers, many of them students. Seventy-one of them lost their lives on impact, and 28 others were injured to varying degrees. ^[4] This was the worst rail disaster in peacetime Italy.
• 1962 Castel Bolognese train disaster, it was a major accident that occurred on March 8, 1962, in the Castel Bolognese railway station, near Ravenna, in Italy. ^[5] The Diretto 152 night train between Bari and Milan derailed at 1:56 AM shortly before entering the station, killing 13 and wounding 127. A special speed limitation of 30 km/h had been enforced by means of an M40 mandatory alert, but the train failed to slow down. ^[6] While entering the switch between the first and the second track, the engine derailed at 102 km/h and fell to the right side. It kept skidding for about 100 meters, coming to a stop against the station's water refill tower. ^[7]
• 1962 Voghera train crash, it is considered one of the most serious incidents in the history of the Italian railways. It happened at track three of Voghera railway station, on the night of 31 May 1962. Sixty-four people lost their lives, and 40 were seriously injured. ^[8] At 2.35 on 31 May 1962, a freight train from Milan, hauled by an E626 class electric locomotive, entered Voghera station at high speed, against protection signals set to 'danger'. It then collided with the rear of a passenger train, which was stationary on Track 3, and about to depart for Genoa.

1970s

• 1978 Murazze di Vado train disaster, it occurred on 15 April 1978, near Murazze di Vado, an area in the town of Vado, part of the Monzuno comune, Bologna. A passenger train was derailed close to a ravine, and seconds later a second train crashed into it. With 42 killed and 76 injured, it is the fourth highest death toll in the history of the Italian railways, after the Balvano, Fiumarella and Voghera disasters. While the official count of the injured is 76, the actual number of injured is often said to be from 117 to more than 120. ^[9]

1980s

• 1980 Curinga train disaster, also known as the Lamezia Terme train disaster, occurred on 21 November 1980 between Curinga and Eccellente stations, in the Catanzaro province.

Initial body count was estimated in 10 dead and 80 injured, later updated to 20 and 122 respectively. ^[10] The final count went up to 29 victims and 104 wounded. ^{[11] [12]} Ferrovie dello Stato train 587 was traveling southbound from Rome to Siracuse on the Salerno-Reggio Calabria railway. At 2.40 a.m., shortly after leaving Lamezia Terme station and heading to Paola, rammed into some loaded cars lost by a freight train leaving Lamezia Terme for Reggio Calabria. ^[12]

• On 21 November 1981, two express passenger trains crashed into freight cars near the Vibo Valentia rail station, killing at least 20 and injuring 100. ^[13]

21st century

2000s

• 2002 Rometta Marea derailment, it occurred on Saturday 20 July 2002 in Rometta Marea, part of the Rometta comune in Sicily, Italy. The Espresso (express train) 1932 Freccia della Laguna, a Ferrovie dello Stato train coming from Palermo to Messina, where it would join another convoy coming from Siracuse, derailed while entering the town of Rometta Marea and hit an abandoned building, 400 metres from a pass-through railway station. Of the 190 passengers on board, 8 were killed and 47 were injured.

• 2005 Crevalcore train crash, it was a major railway accident which occurred on 7 January 2005 on the Verona–Bologna railway, Italy, killing 17. It was one of the worst accidents in the recent history of the state railway company Ferrovie dello Stato. In the accident, a cargo and a passenger train collided in dense fog after the passenger train's driver passed two red signals, possibly as a result of an unwarranted assumption by the driver that the line was clear, despite the warning signals.
• 2005 Eurostar 9410 derailment, this was a minor railroad accident which occurred in Bari, Apulia, Italy, on 24 October 2005. While causing no deaths, it left 30 wounded and five critically injured. It received considerable attention from mass media.
• 2006 Rome Metro crash, On 17 October 2006 at 9:37am local time (07:37 UTC), one Rome Metro train ploughed into another train as it unloaded passengers at the Vittorio Emanuele underground station in the city centre, killing a 30-year-old Italian woman, named Alessandra Lisi, and injuring about 145 others, ^[14] of which a dozen were reported to be in life-threatening conditions.
• 2009 Viareggio train derailment, it was the derailment of a freight train and subsequent fire which occurred on 29 June 2009 in a railway station in Viareggio, Lucca, a city in Central Italy's Tuscany region. Thirty-two people were killed ^{[15] [16]} and a further twenty-six were injured. ^[17]

2010s

• 2010 Merano derailment, The Merano derailment occurred on 12 April 2010 when a train derailed between Latsch and Kastelbell, near Merano, Italy, after running into a landslide, causing nine deaths and injuring 28 people.
• 2010 Circumvesuviana derailment, it occurred on Friday 6 August 2010 in Naples, Italy. A train of the Circumvesuviana line, a local railway providing transport in the area around the Mount Vesuvius, derailed between the San Giorgio a Cremano and Naples stations. The accident led to a single fatality, seventy-one-year-old Giuseppe Marotta, who lost his legs in the wreck and died shortly after arriving at Loreto Mare hospital. Among the fifty-eight injured, a twenty-five-year-old man entered a coma, and a woman had to be treated for severe wounds of the thorax and head. Eleven other people had severe wounds and had to be hospitalized.
• 2016 Andria–Corato train collision, it happened late in the morning of 12 July 2016 when two regional passenger trains on a single-track section of the Bari–Barletta railway collided head-on between the towns of Andria and Corato in the Apulia region of southern Italy. Twenty-three people were killed and 54 injured. ^{[18] [19] [20]} The stretch of track is operated by regional rail company Ferrotramviaria . ^[21]
• 2018 Pioltello train derailment, On 25 January 2018, a commuter train operated by Trenord derailed in Pioltello when two of its carriages came off the track en route to Milan. The incident left 3 women dead and more than 100 people injured, of whom 46 needed medical assistance in hospital. 5 of them were in critical condition. ^[22]

2020s

• 2020 Livraga derailment, it is the first and only railway accident to date that ever happened on the Italian high speed rail network. ^[23] It took place on 6 February 2020 when a high-speed train derailed at Livraga, Lombardy, Italy. Two people died and 31 were injured.
• On December 10, 2023, a Frecciarossa train collided with a passenger train in Faenza, 17 people were injured ^[24]

References

1. "The world's worst train disasters". Railway Technology. 1 January 2014.
2. Nick Squires (2 March 2017). "'Titanic of train disasters': Italy finally commemorates hushed-up wartime tragedy that killed more than 600 people". Telegraph. Retrieved 29 July 2019.
3. "Railroad Disaster on the Balvano". Trivia Library.
4. Notes on, and schedules of, FCL
5. "Il disastro ferroviario del 1962" (in Italian). Retrieved 19 July 2011.
6. Contarini, Maurizio. "Il disastro ferroviario del 1962: testimonianza di Maurizio Contarini" (in Italian). Retrieved 19 July 2011.
7. Tarlazzi, Giovanni. "Il Disastro ferroviario del 1962: foto-testimonianza di Giovanni Tarlazzi" (in Italian). Castelbolognese.org. Retrieved 19 July 2011.
8. "Tragedia sui binari". Il Sole 24 Ore (in Italian). 7 January 2004. Archived from the original on 4 July 2009. Retrieved 1 July 2009.
9. "La Storia" (PDF). 118 Emilia Romagna. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 July 2011. Retrieved 18 July 2011.
10. "Transcript of 5 december 1980 Italian Parliament acts" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 October 2011. Retrieved 20 July 2011.
11. "Incidenti ferroviari in Italia". Macchinisti Sicuri.
12. Nania, Francesco (2010). Una tragedia siciliana – Cronistoria della sciagura ferroviaria di Lamezia Terme (21 novembre 1980). EditoreMorrone. p. 96.
13. "Train Crash Kills 20". Daily Gleaner. November 21, 1981. Retrieved 26 September 2023.
14. RaiNews24 - Cronaca. Incidente a Roma: morta una donna, 145 feriti, 4 gravi. "Treno passato col rosso dopo ok della centrale"
15. "Viareggio, salgono a 18 le vittime del disastro". Reuters (in Italian). 2 July 2009. Archived from the original on 5 July 2009. Retrieved 2 July 2009.
16. "Italy court sentences former railway chief to 7 years in prison". Reuters. 31 January 2017. Retrieved 1 February 2017.
17. "Addio a Elisabeth la trentaduesima vittima". Il Tirreno (in Italian). 22 December 2009. Archived from the original on 25 December 2009. Retrieved 22 December 2009.
18. Sportelli, Francesco; Winfield, Nicole (12 July 2016). "Italy train crash probe examines delays, antiquated control". San Francisco Chronicle. Associated Press. Retrieved 14 July 2016.
19. "Scontro fra treni in Puglia, identificate le 23 vittime. Mattarella visiterà la camera ardente" [Clash of trains in Puglia, identified 23 victims. Mattarella will visit the funeral home]. La Repubblica (in Italian). 13 July 2016. Retrieved 20 July 2016.
20. "The Latest: At Least a Dozen Dead in Italy Train Crash". The New York Times . 12 July 2016. Retrieved 12 July 2016.
21. "Italy train crash: 'Twenty-three killed' near Bari in collision". BBC. 12 July 2016. Retrieved 12 July 2016.
22. "Milan train crash: at least two people killed after derailment". The Guardian. 25 January 2018. Retrieved 25 January 2018.
23. "Treno deragliato a Lodi, in che stato di salute è l'alta velocità in Italia?". Open (in Italian). 2020-02-07. Retrieved 2020-10-17.
24. "17 'lightly injured' after train crash in Italy". 10 December 2023.