The official death toll of yesterday's Puglia train crash is 23 fatalities and none missing, Governor Michele Emiliano said Wednesday based on a coroner's report.
He said 52 wounded were treated and 24 remain hospitalized, eight of them in reserved prognosis. Among the latter is Samuele Desario, who turns seven today and whose grandmother died in the head-on collision between commuter trains between the towns of Andria and Corato.
Local prosecutors have launched a multiple manslaughter probe into the crash that occurred on a single track, and may have been caused by human error.
Rescuers and canine units worked all night and will carry on through the day in search of other survivors or victims who may still be trapped in the twisted metal of the wreck as family members started identifying the dead at the morgue. Moments of tension were reported early in the morning when 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, a local prefect 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," the official said.
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.
Fifteen of the injured were 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.
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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