Dancers crash through floor at Tuscany wedding party
Newlyweds sent to hospital after revellers fall 13ft when huge hole appears beneath them in ancient monastery
GUESTS at a lavish Italian-american wedding in a 15th-century Tuscan monastery crashed through the arched ceilings as they danced the night away.
Some 40 revellers plummeted about 13ft as an almost perfectly circular hole opened up beneath them, landing amid rubble, dust and plaster beneath a grand Last Supper fresco.
The two newlyweds, Paolo Mugnaini and Valeria Ybarra, both 26, ended the night sat side by side in hospital beds recovering from the fall. They were surrounded by other guests, all of whom were taken to hospital. Everyone survived, although six suffered serious but non-life-threatening injuries.
“We found ourselves sucked down while we were dancing. It was panic. Then there was only dust and rubble, we couldn’t see anything. Next to me there was a friend of mine who fainted and was bleeding a lot,” Mr Mugnaini told doctors, according to the Italian daily La Repubblica.
Mr Mugnaini, a teacher from Florence and Ms Ybarra, a student from
Houston, Texas, were discharged overnight.
The incident happened at about 7pm local time. Towards the end of the party, when the remaining guests were dancing, a round hole of about 16ft in diameter opened below their feet, causing them to fall from a height.
Carabinieri police Lt Col Ruben Ruggeri said: “Luckily there was nobody underneath because a lot of very heavy material fell together with the people.”
He added that the cause of the incident is still unknown and that police have opened an investigation.
“It was an apocalyptic scene, a shock. A dense cloud of smoke came from the floor and wrapped us amid screams of pain and help,” an unnamed guest told local media outlet Reportpistoia. The witness also said that moments before the collapse the floor was trembling under the dancing people. The guests then felt something resembling an earthquake tremor and many of them fell through the hole, they said.
Italian police and firemen rushed to the scene to coordinate the rescue and nearby hospitals were alerted immediately after the incident, Eugenio Giani, Tuscany’s president, said. “It could have been a terrible tragedy. I wholeheartedly thank all the rescuers and medical personnel involved,” he said.
The party was held at the Convento di Giaccherino, an ancient monastery in the Tuscan countryside near Pistoia. Many guests had left and those who remained were mostly young friends of the married couple, Lt Col Ruggeri said.
The management of the Convento, which was placed under administrative seizure by the police, could not be reached for comment.
‘We found ourselves sucked down while we were dancing ... there was only dust and rubble’