(see related)Family members of
victims of a fatal train collision in Puglia on Wednesday
started identifying the dead at the morgue in the city of Bari.
Moments of tension were reported early in the morning when
morgue officials tried to limit access to two relatives per
victim in the identification process.
After protests and cries of "shame" all relatives present
were allowed in and the situation reportedly went back to
normal.
Also on Wednesday, the prefect of Bari, Andria and Trani,
Clara Minerva, said rescuers who have been working since
yesterday in search of other survivors or victims found human
remains under a locomotive removed from the tracks.
"Human remains have been found after a locomotive was
moved," said Minerva, adding she hoped they belonged to one of
the 23 victims whose bodies have been found.
Victims included train driver and Andria native Pasquale
Abbasciano, who was a year away from retirement, and 23-year-old
Giuseppe Zingaro, who had previously been reported missing.
One of the rescuers working at the scene, Marianna
Tarantini, also said the first victims she spotted right after
the crash Tuesday were a mother holding her little daughter in
her arms.
"They were lying against an olive tree, the mother was
protecting her little daughter and they were in a fetal
position," she said.
"They were the first I found, in the middle of heads, arms
and torsos scattered everywhere under the trees," said
Tarantini.
The death toll from the head-on commuter train collision
yesterday between Andria and Corato has risen to 27 with 51
injured, sources said.
Fifteen of the injured are being treated in hospitals in
Andria, Barletta and Bisceglie.
Four - Matteo Mascoli, 83, Raffaele Di Ciommo, 31,
Valentina Dell'Olio, 23, and Samuele Desario, 7 - are reportedly
in critical condition.
Local prosecutors have launched a multiple manslaughter
probe into the crash that occurred on a single track between the
towns of Andria and Corato, and may have been caused by human
error.
However Trani State attorney Francesco Giannella, who will
be heading the team investigating the crash, said Wednesday the
probe will look into all possible causes.
"The investigation will not only look into human error, we
must examine all possibilities," he said.
Giannella noted that no one has yet been placed under
investigation, although this might change "in a few hours".
He added investigators will also focus on delays in
renovating the security system, which in that particular stretch
of track relied on an old telephone alert system used to inform
station masters of trains travelling on the single track.
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