Death toll reaches 27 in Italian train disaster

By Baris Seckin

ROME (AA) - The death toll from a rail crash in southern Italy reached 27 on Wednesday, local media reported.

Tuesday’s head-on collision between two passenger trains between the towns of Corato and Andria in Puglia left more than 50 injured, news agency ANSA said.

Rescuers are still searching for bodies among the wreckage and in trackside olive groves but do not expect to find any other victims, the agency said. An investigation is focusing on human error as the likely cause of the accident.

Newspaper reports said the trains were travelling at high speed towards each other on a single track when they collided. According to the reports, one had been supposed to wait at a station before proceeding but communication between station staff and the driver broke down.

The crash is the worst train disaster to hit Italy since June 2009 when a freight train carrying liquid petroleum gas derailed in Viareggio, central Italy. The fire killed more than 30 people. Previously, 42 died when two trains collided near Murazze di Vado, Bologna, in April 1978.