Several members of the same family were reportedly getting some fresh air on a sweltering night when the third-floor walkway connecting two sections of a building on the dilapidated Scampia estate crumbled beneath their feet.Walkway collapse kills two on infamous Naples estate. Two people were killed and 13 others injured when a walkway collapsed on a council estate which has become synonymous with Naples mafia drug wars.
One of the residents, Vincenza Troise, said she was having dinner “with the door wide open because it was so hot when suddenly we heard a loud roar, like an earthquake”.
The victims were named locally as 29-year-old Roberto, a butcher and the father of a two-year-old girl, and his aunt Margherita, 35, who had three children.
Of the 13 people hurt, seven were children aged between two and eight years old. Two of the younger children are described as being in a critical condition.
More than 800 people were evacuated from the estate overnight.
Several residents told Italian media that they blamed the accident on ongoing building work on the estate. “Every morning you can feel the vibrations from the jackhammers and you see rocks tumbling down,” one woman told state broadcaster Rai.
Prosecutors in Naples have opened an investigation for manslaughter.
