BARI, Italy (AP) Italian officials on Wednesday pointed to delayed, EU-financed rail improvements and the “risky”, antiquated telephone alert system used in parts of Italy as possible underlying causes of a violent head-on train crash that killed some two dozen people.
Advertisement
An image of the crash showed the carriages had been badly damaged and forced off the rails at sharp angles, with debris strewn across either side of the tracks.
Rescuers were still searching for the driver of one of the trains that collided head-on while traveling down the same stretch of track linking the small towns of Corato and Andria in the southeastern Puglia region in Italy’s heel.
“Tears and sorrow for the victims and their families, but also so much anger”, Mr Renzi said yesterday.
Railway authorities and union leaders pointed the finger at human error, saying that the stretch of track between Andria and Corato did not have an automatic alert system that would send off alarms if two trains were close and on the same single track. Coroner Franco Introna told the ANSA news agency that 22 bodies were at the morgue, with a 23rd expected to arrive later from Andria. Seven of those still hospitalized are in critical condition. He said four people had been “seriously” injured and appealed for blood donors to go to local hospitals.
It is feared that the death toll may rise further in the coming days as severely wounded passengers succumb to their injuries.
The Mayor of Corato, Massimo Mazzilli, said the scene was horrific and the rescue work was ongoing with firefighters, civil protection officials and volunteers.
“I dug through the wreckage and managed to save my husband”.
Mr Renzi interrupted a trip to Milan to return to Rome following the accident.
“I don’t know what happened, it all happened so quickly, I don’t know”, one woman, eight months pregnant, told The Associated Press.
Over the past 15 years, four major train accidents occurred across the country and have caused a total of 56 victims, of which 32 died in 2009 when a freight train derailed in the town of Viareggio, in Tuscany region, and caused a large fire.
It was not clear how many people had been on the trains.
Work was reportedly in progress to add another track to the line in the area, so that such a head-on collision would be impossible.
Advertisement
Massimo Nitti, the director general of private company Ferrotramviaria that runs the rail service, dismissed suggestions that his firm was to blame for the foot-dragging, telling Norba TV that red tape had tied up the project.
