Two passenger trains collided on the Bari Nord train line in Italy on Tuesday.
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Emergency services are at the scene near the town of Andria and are trying to free passengers from the wrecked carriages.
One child, believed to be aged 7, was pulled from the wreckage and taken to hospital in a helicopter, as more than 100 ambulances waited for more victims to be rescued, Italian media reported.
Reports from the region of Puglia say it is unclear why the collision happened.
Simultaneously, it is peculiar that a crash of such a nature with the body-count it caused would yield no images of the bodies but only of the wreckage.
“Some of the cars are completely crumpled and the rescuers are extracting people from the metal, many of them injured”, Zingaro told the Italian news agency ANSA at the scene.
Throughout the world, the increasing privatization of public rail systems and government austerity measures have led to job cuts and delay in necessary infrastructure upgrades and maintenance undermining the safety of both rail workers and the traveling public.
Recovery operations using a giant crane and rescue dogs continued through the night and into Wednesday to remove the mangled debris of the two commuter trains that slammed into one another just before noon Tuesday in the neat olive groves of Puglia. Giancarlo Conticchio. “And surely there was an error”. Italian news reports said the work was supposed to have started years ago. Some of the carriages were so badly damaged there was little left but debris.
Corato Mayor Massimo Mazzilli said looking at the scale of the devastation, “One would think it was an airplane accident”.
“I saw dead people, others who were begging for help, people crying”.
“I don’t know what happened, it all happened so quickly, I don’t know”, she told The Associated Press.
“The situation is dramatic”, vice president of the Puglia region, Antonio Nunizante, was quoted as saying by ANSA. “Ms. Gnesi said that the trains were probably operating on instructions from dispatchers”.
He said “I want to express my condolences to the families and I have ordered, with no holding back, an inquiry to find who is responsible”. “We are demanding clarity about what happened in Puglia this morning”.
“My thoughts go to the families of the victims”, he said.
Transport Minister Graziano Delrio is expected to address parliament Wednesday about the incident.
The trains which crashed are likely to have been transporting commuters and students heading to Bari as well as people travelling to the regional airport.
The prosecutor in the nearby town of Trani has also opened a judicial investigation.
The last major rail disaster in Italy was in 2009, when a freight train carrying liquid petroleum gas derailed and exploded, killing 29 people at the station in the town of Viareggio.
April 1978: Two trains collide near a ravine next to Murazze Vado.
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“I found a horrific terrifying scene”, said one of the first policemen to arrive on the crash scene.
