Six people were killed and three are missing after a container ship crashed into a control tower in the northern Italian port of Genoa, rescuers said on Wednesday.
The tower, which was more than 50 metres (160 feet) high and looked much like the ones common at airports, collapsed into the water late on Tuesday after being struck by the prow of the vessel, the Jolly Nero.
Two of the dead were coastguard officers and a third was a pilot for the port, the coastguard said.
The three other victims have yet to be identified. Two were recovered from the wreckage of the tower's lift, a firefighters' spokesman said.
The accident happened as staff were changing shifts and there were 13 people in the tower when it was struck, the coastguard said.
As well as the dead and missing, officials said four people were injured and had been taken to hospital. Two were seriously hurt and one had lost a foot, investigators said.
"The main injuries are fractures, crushed body parts, significant traumas," emergency services doctor Andrea Furgani said.
The crash occurred shortly after 11 p.m. (2100 GMT) in calm conditions as the Jolly Nero was manoeuvring out of the port.
Genoa prosecutor Michele Di Lecce has opened an investigation and is focusing on a possible malfunction of the ship's engine or steering mechanism, judicial sources said.
The crash is the most serious maritime accident in Italy since the Costa Concordia luxury cruise liner struck a rock and capsized off the island of Giglio in January 2012, killing 32 people.
"There's no logical explanation because two tug boats were moving the ship and there was a port pilot on board and sea conditions were optimal," the head of the Genoa Port Authority, Luigi Merlo, said.
The only thing left where the tower had stood was a leaning metal-framed stairway. Divers from the fire department joined the search for bodies.
The Jolly Nero, which is 238 metres-long (781 foot) with a gross tonnage of 40,594 tonnes, is owned by local operator Ignazio Messina and Co.
"A thing like this has never happened, we are devastated," said Stefano Messina, one of the directors of the family-owned firm, who was in tears when he spoke to a local TV channel.
WITNESSES – “I was on duty on the Giano wharf when I heard the impact. I went round, looked back and saw it. At first we thought it might have been a ship that had collided. I glanced back and couldn’t see the control tower any more. So I leaned out and saw the wreckage and the ship moving off”. The man talking to Genoa’s Primocanale television station is Girolamo Cuomo, a Genoa harbour worker who witnessed yesterday evening’s collision. According to R.G., one of the security guards on duty at the Giano wharf check point, the tower “came crashing down” after the impact. R.G. had only just come on duty when the incident occurred. “It must have been eleven o’clock, or just after. I was in the check point office when I heard what sounded like an explosion. Three guys then ran past screaming: ‘The tower! The tower!’ I went outside and the tower had gone. In its place was a ship’s prow”. “We’re shattered, worse than that”, says a tearful Stefano Messina, the Jolly Nero’s owner. “This has never happened before. We are heart-stricken”.
PUBLIC MOURNING – The mayor of Genoa, Marco Doria, and the chair of the harbour authority, Luigi Merlo, rushed to the scene. The mayor announced public mourning for the “extremely serious incident that affects the entire city”. “It’s a terrible tragedy. We are devastated, what can we say? It’s an incident without an explanation for the time being. It was a perfect evening”, said harbour authority chair Luigi Merlo. “The sea was calm, there was no wind and the illumination was perfect. The manoeuvre shouldn’t have been carried out in that area. The ship was leaving the harbour and it’s not as if it’s a particularly big vessel”. On Wednesday morning, the prime minister, Enrico Letta, met the infrastructure and transport minister Maurizio Lupi at the Prime Minister’s Office, Palazzo Chigi, before leaving for Genoa. He will report to Parliament in the afternoon.TOWER – The Genoa harbour control tower, which collapsed after it was rammed by the Jolly Nero, housed various offices, including the harbour pilot company and the coastguard. According to rescuers, the collision took place during a change of shift, which makes it harder to establish with any precision how many people were on the wharf at the time. The 54 metre-high control tower dates from the Nineties and covered the whole of the north Tyrrhenian Sea. Its radar installation has a range of up to 30 or 40 miles.