Shop assistant Alessandra Frazzica, 21, has been confirmed as the third victim of the building collapse in Messina. Prosecutors have placed three people under investigation for negligent disaster as searches continue for the remaining four missing.
The death toll from Wednesday’s building collapse in Messina’s Pistunina district has risen to three, with rescuers confirming the recovery of a second body overnight and firefighters continuing to search for four people still missing.
Alessandra Frazzica, a 21-year-old shop assistant from Messina who worked at a Chinese-run bazaar on the building’s first floor, has been confirmed as the third victim. She was working alongside a colleague, Davide Lambiase, 26, who survived the collapse with a minor head injury and bruising after the pair tried to flee together. “We heard an enormous bang,” Lambiase said from hospital. “We started running hand in hand, then we got separated.”
Four still missing
The search continues for four people: sisters Sara and Rosa Leone, Rosa’s husband Santino Magazzù, and Lhairu Warnakulasuriya, a Sri Lankan domestic worker who was with the family. Businessman Carmelo Leone, the family’s relative, was the first body recovered from the rubble on Friday morning.
Clelia Magazzù, daughter of two of those still missing, made a public appeal on social media, asking people not to call her parents’ mobile phones, as firefighters are using the phones’ signals to try to pinpoint their location beneath the debris. Warnakulasuriya’s sister, Sakira, said she had lost contact with her brother since he left for work at 3pm on the day of the collapse.
Messina‘s Prosecutor’s Office has opened a formal investigation into negligent disaster, with three people now placed under investigation as part of the inquiry. Carabinieri and firefighters continue to work together to establish the precise cause of the collapse. An initial theory involving a gas explosion has been ruled out, with investigators now focused on structural failure as the most likely explanation.
Fire Brigade Commander Michele Burgio said there were no reports of renovation work under way on the ground floor at the time of the collapse, though two of the three people injured were construction workers. Some reports have suggested maintenance work may have been taking place on the ground floor before the disaster, though this has not been confirmed by investigators.
Search and rescue operations have now continued for more than 48 hours, involving specialist USAR teams, dog handlers, drones and heavy machinery deployed by the Sicilian regional government. Officials say the probability of finding the four missing residents alive continues to diminish with time, though the operation has not been scaled back.
