ROME, Feb 7 (Reuters) – Italian police said on Saturday they suspected arsonists had struck rail infrastructure near the northern city of Bologna, triggering major disruptions to train traffic on the first full day of the Winter Olympic Games.
The fire hit a track switch and severed electrical cables used to detect train speed, causing delays of up to two hours for high-speed, Intercity and regional services at one of Italy’s busiest rail hubs.
The blaze was “presumably deliberate” but had not been claimed, a spokesperson for the police said, adding that transport police and the anti-terrorist Digos force were on site and investigating.
The fire targeted the line between Bologna and Venice, but also caused knock-on problems for traffic between Bologna and Milan, and routes to the Adriatic coast.
Milan is a co-host for the Winter Games alongside Cortina, which is reachable via train from Venice.
At the 2024 Summer Olympic Games staged in Paris, saboteurs struck France’s TGV high-speed train network in a series of pre-dawn attacks across the country, causing travel chaos ahead of the opening ceremony.
Italy’s state-owned railway Ferrovie dello Stato (FS) said that despite the disruption, trains were still running.
(Reporting by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Aidan Lewis)
