A TERRIBLE TRAGEDY LEAVES GENOA SHOCKED

The city of Genoa is in mourning. Late in the evening on Tuesday night nine people lost their lives and others were seriously injured  in a freak accident when a container ship hit the control tower in the port of Genoa.
  As has now been reported all over the world, the Jolly Nero was leaving for Naples, in perfect weather conditions, assisted by tug boats with pilots, when for reasons unknown the ship took a wrong turn and crashed into the tower. At least 13 people are known to have been in the tower, as one shift of pilots were leaving home, letting their colleagues to take over. On impact the 40 meter long tower - made of concrete and glass -  collapsed totally and an ordinary, uneventful night turned into a scene from hell.

  Naturally, there has been a massive coverage on the accident in Italian newspapers with countless theories, speculation and opinions on what might have gone wrong. Was it a mechanical fault or a human error? We will not know until the official investigation has been completed and that will take a long time. The commander of the ship and the pilot, who was assisting him, have testified that the ship's steering mechanism did not respond and that it was out of control.

  Genoa is a small place. The people who died in this accident were between 30 and 50 years old, one of them was a woman. Many of the victims were married with children and they were all well known in their communities. Pilots are an especially tight-knit group in Genoa. Everyone is beside themselves with grief, having lost close friends and relatives in the accident.

   However, one 36-year old man, currently recovering in a hospital with a broken arm and bruises, had an absolutely miraculous escape. He was interviewed yesterday by the local newspaper, Il Secolo XIX.

  The man had just finished his shift around 11 PM and he went into a lift in the tower with two other colleagues. Suddenly, all hell broke loose: the lift started to shake and rattle, "like in an earthquake." The man said that he did not understand what was happening. The lift seems to have flown up in the air, landing into the sea. It started sinking rapidly.  The man - still inside the lift and conscious - said that everything was dark around him and the water was freezing cold. He managed to find a gap in the wreckage and got out through this small hole. When he got up to the surface, after swallowing sea water and gasping for air, he was totally disorientated and did not even realise that his arm was broken.  Luckily, he found something to hold on and he calmed down while thinking about his pregnant wife.  "This is not the way I want to die", he remembers saying to himself, watching ambulances and flashing sirens on the shore. Finally, he was  found by rescuers who pulled him into a boat and took him to the hospital. He certainly has every reason to be thankful.