Collapsed tunnel traps suspected bank robber near Vatican

Published August 13, 2022
FIRST responders carry out a rescue operation for a suspected thief who was buried under rubble for about eight hours.—AFP
FIRST responders carry out a rescue operation for a suspected thief who was buried under rubble for about eight hours.—AFP

ROME: An Italian man had to be rescued after becoming trapped in a collapsed tunnel near the Vatican, suspected of being part of a gang burrowing its way to a nearby bank, police said on Friday.

Firefighters spent eight hours digging him out from under a road in the west of Rome, before he was finally freed on Thursday evening and taken to hospital.

“Two people from Naples were arrested for resisting a public official and two, from Rome, for damage” to public property, a police spokesman said.

The rescued man, one of the two Romans, remains in hospital, he said.

“We are still investigating, we do not exclude that they are thieves, it is one of the theories,” he said.

For Italian newspapers, however, the motive was clear, noting the tunnel was found near a bank ahead of the Aug 15 long weekend, when residents traditionally head out of town and much of Rome becomes empty.

“The hole gang,” headlined the Corriere della Sera daily, while La Stampa said: “They dig a tunnel to rob a bank, and one of them is buried underground.”

An eyewitness said he had seen the man brought out alive on a stretcher, after a day-long operation involving dozens of emergency service workers using mechanical diggers.

The tunnel began underneath an empty shop that had recently been rented.

“We all thought that the people there were renovating the place. So, we had no suspicion and we did not hear noises either,” a resident, Michele, who lives in the same building, said.

Published in Dawn, August 13th, 2022

Opinion

Editorial

A year later
Updated 08 Feb, 2025

A year later

A war of egos has been fought between a handful of individuals at the cost of the well-being of millions of ordinary Pakistanis.
Wheat decision
08 Feb, 2025

Wheat decision

THE federal decision to stop setting the minimum support price for wheat and cease the staple’s procurement...
Dhanmondi attack
08 Feb, 2025

Dhanmondi attack

HISTORY has shown that unless states deliver development and equal rights to all, disenfranchised people can target...
Depopulating Gaza
Updated 07 Feb, 2025

Depopulating Gaza

The least feasible "solution" is the Trumpian plan for Gaza’s ethnic cleansing and occupation, which is a non-starter.
‘Pause’ in US aid
07 Feb, 2025

‘Pause’ in US aid

THE impact of the Trump administration’s decision to ‘pause’ all US foreign aid programmes, especially those...
Mobilising opposition
07 Feb, 2025

Mobilising opposition

POLITICS makes strange bedfellows. There has not, for quite some time, been a guest list as intriguing as the one...