Families start identifying Puglia train crash victims

(see related)(ANSA) - Bari, July 13 - 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.