Rome petrol station explosion leaves 40 injured
Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri said that local police and firefighters rushed to the area after receiving a report of a gas leak. Two explosions followed after they arrived, he added.
'Local police immediately evacuated a sports centre nearby, while other officers evacuated buildings on the other side of the gas station, avoiding a much more serious tragedy,' Mr Gualtieri said.
Elisabetta Accardo, Rome's police spokeswoman, said that 24 residents were injured, including two who were in 'severe conditions' at Rome's Casilino hospital.
Eleven of the injured are from law enforcement bodies — police and carabinieri — and one is a firefighter but they are not in life-threatening conditions.
Rome prosecutors have begun an investigation into the cause of the explosion, which could be related to a previous gas leak during the unloading phase of liquified petroleum gas at the station.
The sports centre was evacuated swiftly by police following the first explosion, with several children brought to safety. Police said they checked the surrounding area for people who were injured or trapped in nearby buildings.
Barbara Belardinelli said that she and her daughter were slightly injured when they heard the first explosion and left their home to investigate before the next explosion struck them.
'As soon as we heard the second explosion, we were also hit by a ball of fire. I thought that a car near us exploded, metal fragments were flying in the air,' she said. 'We felt the fire on the skin, the arm of my daughter is still red, it was horrible.'
Other residents said the explosion was so loud and violent it struck nearby buildings 'like an earthquake', breaking windows and ripping off shutters.
Pope Leo XIV said that he was praying for those affected by the explosion, which happened 'in the heart of my Diocese'.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said she was closely following the developments.
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I remember ringing up the chief executive of Stirling Council at 8pm one night and saying, 'In a few weeks' time, you're gonna have 5000 activists descending on your town, and if there's not anywhere for them to go, they're just going to be around in the town, and it's just going to be really hectic'. READ MORE: Kate Forbes: Bigger-picture switch is proving key in tackling tourism issues 'The next morning, the people at the council who we were liaising with contacted us and said, 'We've got a bit of land for you'.' But the land was not ideal, Amy remembers, 'One of the things that we really worried about was that the site was completely surrounded by a brook. There was one road in and the rest of it was surrounded by a river. We felt a bit like, 'are we in a trap now?'.' Fraser agrees: 'It wasn't what we wanted. There was the danger of getting kettled and the danger of when we got kettled, people jumping in the river.' On July 2, 2005, some 2000 people and the samba band marched through Edinburgh in a carnival atmosphere. The weather was hot; the buildings tall, grand and grey. I played a surdo, a huge drum (in general, the smaller the woman, the bigger the drum) for miles, which was exhausting. Then the band made our way to the camp in Stirling, the nearest large town to Gleneagles. I'd already attended an anarchist anti-G8 camp in Evian in 2003, which was the political equivalent of the Glastonbury Festival. Organised along the barrio system, it had music, workshops, tents, food stalls, activities and meetings. I cooked meals for the camp using donated and waste food from dumpsters for the Manchester barrio kitchen. I blogged at the time: 'Have attended more meetings in a week than ever before in life.' Meetings used hand signals, eg waving hands for agreement (silent clapping). Much of the language started in 1960s protest movements and has since been used in civil rights, Reclaim the Streets, climate camps, anti-globalisation movements and Occupy. Protest hand signals were added to the basic samba vocabulary, as players cannot hear each other. This is also a good way to cross language barriers for international participants. Sister protest samba bands travelled from Belgium, Germany, Holland. The camp was multilingual. I was surprised by the efficiency and organisation of the Stirling convergence camp. There were toilets, food stores and a sophisticated ecological greywater system for wastewater. Kate Evans, a political cartoonist who was present, recalls: 'There was an impromptu Highland Games. I won the caber toss!' We even had a camp witch – an American called Starhawk who cast spells over the campsite to protect it from the police. 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Once we arrived at the police lines, near Auchterarder, close to the Gleneagles hotel, we set up a 'terrorist toddlers' picnic, which included a sound system, clowns, bubbles, rain, banners, colour and an enormous umbrella under which we played samba. Entertainment was provided also by the Geishas of Gaiety (white-faced, dressed in kimonos and waving fans) and the Radical Cheerleaders, as well as the award-winning poet Kae Tempest (at that time Kate Tempest). The police appeared nonplussed. Jay, who led the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army (Circa), which used clowning, satire and absurdity to critique the establishment, remembers with amusement: 'Bored cops were convinced to play a game similar to paper scissors rock, called wizards, goblins, giants. At the end, they couldn't help but laugh and we hugged.' That night in the camp, we were on high alert, blockaded by police. From time to time, people would run about, screaming, 'we are going to be raided'. Others sneaked out slowly, avoiding police lines. On July 7, the morning after the confrontation at Gleneagles, we heard the news – terrorist bombings on public transport in the centre of London. We gathered for a large meeting. People were sombre and concerned. I was holding back tears. My sister lived in King's Cross and I was terrified she'd been caught up in it. Our protest and the Make Poverty History message were wiped off the front pages. As Amy explains: 'That took the attention from us, which is terrible to say but that was our experience. 'We'd put in months of our lives to do this, and no-one noticed, apart from a few delegates who couldn't get to a few meetings. We wanted it to be big news and it wasn't because of the bombing. READ MORE: Pat Kane: The powerful vision of Adam Curtis has an obvious blind spot So, do participants in the 2005 anti-G8 camp at Stirling think protest works? What did they learn? Giovanna Speciale, a music leader in the samba band, reflects: 'The change is us. Politicians are very rarely changed by protesters coming up and saying, 'You should change, you should change your attitude. You're really bad'. 'Protest rarely changes anyone's mind, but it does change what is politically feasible to talk about. 'Nothing changes someone more than having gone out, taken, done an action, got a placard, written on it saying what their attitude is, then showing that to everyone else. There is a massive problem with protest in that often we're othering ourselves, so we make ourselves look different, sound different. 'There is nothing less likely to change a politician's mind than a bunch of people who are clearly outsiders.' Amy says: 'That question actually makes me well up a little bit – that's quite an emotional question. I variously go through phases where I'm just like, 'there's no point', right? It does nothing. Years and years of doing massive protests like the Stop the War march in London and they just still invaded the next day. 'You do all of these massive events and then the only coverage we'd get would be the traffic news. I gave up the whole of my 20s, pretty much, to fight capitalism and be an activist.' Jay says: 'Stirling was the end of a cycle. It was a symbolic victory. Protesters were saying, 'This isn't normal. This isn't democracy.' But there is a burnout culture in activism. I teach regenerative activism now to combat it.' Fraser says of direct action: 'Obviously there is a sort of bravado – of youth or masculinity.' Giovanna adds: 'There were huge amounts of courage and, yes, sacrifice and creativity.' Amy says: 'I don't want to categorise my life in a hierarchy of excitingness, but they definitely were very exciting times. There was a sense of heroism, we're the ones who are standing up. Danger intertwined with righteousness – which is what makes heroism, isn't it?' It is often wondered whether there is really a point to protest, not least by activists themselves. There is little doubt, though, that the Stirling camp and anti-G8 protest at Gleneagles was a deeply meaningful experience for those involved.
