Welfare Minister Maurizio Sacconi on Thursday promised an ''exceptional plan'' to tackle the phenomenon of workplace deaths after six men died at a sewage plant in Sicily.
The minister has called an emergency meeting between unions and industry representatives for Thursday afternoon.
It is thought that Giuseppe Zaccaria, Natale Giovanni Sofia, Giuseppe Palumbo, Salvatore Pulici, Salvatore Tumino and Salvatore Smecca inhaled toxic fumes while cleaning a tank filter at the plant in Mineo, a small town 35km from Catania.
Four of the men worked at the city council-run plant including Zaccaria, who was also the nominated safety officer.
Outside contracting company Carfi' Ecological Services, which employed the two other men, said Thursday that its service agreement had ''not foreseen the presence of personnel inside tanks'' and demanded clarification on how the accident had happened.
Investigators believe that two of the men entered the tank first while the other four then came in to help.
''We found them in a row at the bottom of the tank covered in a thin layer of sludge,'' said Catania fire chief Salvatore Spano'.
''They had almost certainly tried to save themselves but became trapped inside that chamber of death,'' he added.
Caltagirone public prosecutor, Onforio Lo Re said autopsies on the men would be carried out over the next two days.
''They were not wearing masks or oxygen tanks, but we don't know if these were necessary,'' he said.
The men's deaths drew immediate parallels with a similar incident that shocked the nation in March when five men died from inhaling hydrogen sulphide at an industrial vehicle maintenance company in Molfetta, Puglia.
In that case too the men died one after the other as they tried to rescue colleagues in difficulty.
There have been five other serious work incidents involving multiple deaths in the last seven months. These include the deaths of four people in an explosion at a fireworks factory near Orvieto in February and the deaths of seven in a fire at the ThyssenKrupp steelworks in Turin last December.
The last government pushed through work safety reforms earlier this year that included hefty fines for employers failing to follow regulations and measures to protect immigrant workers, combat illegal labour and tighten control of the subcontracting chain.
The new government of Premier Silvio Berlusconi has pledged to continue tackling work-related deaths. But according to ANMIL, an association representing injured workers, the country needs far more work safety inspectors for the reforms to make any difference.
The association said that if every Italian business were to be checked by the number of staff currently available, each would receive a visit once every 23 years.
Sacconi said Thursday's meeting would address the issue of increasing controls.
