Station master takes blame for deadly Italy train crash

Investigators said at least one of the trains had been traveling very fast, and have believed from the start the collision was possibly caused by human error.

Local officials said it was hard to say how many people were on board the train at the time as there was no list. He doesnt know about his grandmother, ” said Giovanni Gorgoni, head of Puglias health department, adding that the boy had a slight fever from an infection from the flying shards, but no broken bones.

Three carriages were torn apart by the impact of the head-on collision, which happened on Tuesday.

The men in charge of the stations at the towns of Corato and Andria, between which the accident happened, have been placed under investigation on suspicion of causing a rail disaster and multiple manslaughter, the source said.

November 2012: Six people believed to be Romanian farm workers were killed after a van they were travelling in was struck by a train as it crossed railway tracks in Calabria. Italian media said the European Union had earmarked funds to build a second track along the route but that the work had been delayed.

According to La Stampa, the line dates to 1965. Delrio didn’t explain why, but noted that Puglia officials had secured funding for the 2014-2020 budget and that bidding for contracts was to have begun on July 19.

Trani Prosecutor Francesco Giannella said the delay in the track-doubling work would be part of the investigation.

The news agency ANSA has identified the two stationmasters as among those under investigation.

Hundreds of mourners held a candle-lit procession to the station late Wednesday, after relatives of victims spent the day at a hospital morgue, providing identification details to help doctors put names to the mangled dead.

Most passengers had no warning of the impending disaster which one witness compared to a plane crash. My brother said she (his missing wife) had a necklace with the letter M on it, and a scar here, signs that could identify her. A nurse said they have probably identified her.”.

The stretch of track is operated by a small, private rail company Ferrotramviaria. The 24-year railway veteran said there was confusion along the single-track rail line due to delays.

Nitti also defended the use of the phone alert system, saying it had worked for 51 years without incident.

Graziano Delrio, Italy’s minister of infrastructure and transport, on Wednesday told Italian Parliament that the single-track line system in which station managers communicate directly with train conductors is “one of the least sophisticated and most risky”.