I was driving along the Val Venosta to visit my friend Valeria just after the day it happened.
The 12 of April the train that was taking people around 9.30 in the morning to Merano was hit by a landslide. Suddenly, deadly, without any warning sign.
The 9 people whose life was taken away didn't even probably realized.  The other 30 wounded and deeply shocked could tell their story. Most of deceased  were student. They were sitting in the first wagon. One minute before or later and nobody would have been hurt.

So unpredictable is mother earth, although sometimes there are human mistakes, that provokes a situation and creates a disaster. I only know that when I stood opposite to the place of  disaster I could not hold my tears.
I parked the car and walk towards the train. I had a deep burning feeling of sitting in prayer and mourn for those lost lives. Many people were watching, mostly from the valley, apart from journalist and television. The grief was unbearable.

A group of student were sitting next to me crying and sobbing for having lost their friends. Seeing them broke my heart and more tears for mercy just wet the ground.

I was only 22 when a car hit  me 100 kmh of speed as I was walking on the right side of the road and threw me 50 meters away. I landed in the bushes completely unconscious with severe multiple fractures.
Every accident I witness since then pierces through my memory like an arrow and touches for few moments the space between life and death.  I am always so deeply moved by the inevitable and there is nothing else I can do then cry and silently pray.

So in front of the devastation of the train I cried, feeling those people who cannot go to work anymore, seeing their family and friends anymore, cannot finish their study, marry and grow old. A  prematurely born  child, held in the hospital since 3 weeks, will never see his mother again, because she was sitting on that train that she took every morning since he was born to bring him milk in the hospital.

Few candles and some flowers on the road side to remind those who stayed to never forget.
May the mercy of God give strength and patience to those who mourn  their loved one who lost their life on that train. A train that never came to its destination.
May the journey into the beyond take them Home.
May those souls find peace. 

More about the train accident.

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