Train crash probe examining alert system

The investigation into the violent head-on train crash in southern Italy that killed nearly two dozen people is focusing in particular on the antiquated telephone alert system used to advise station masters of trains running on the single track.

Recovery operations using a giant crane and rescue dogs continued through the night and into Wednesday to remove the mangled debris of the two commuter trains that slammed into one another just before noon Tuesday in the neat olive groves of Puglia.

After visiting the crash site, Premier Matteo Renzi declared it an "absurd" tragedy and vowed to investigate fully. His transport minister was to brief parliament later on Wednesday.

Union leaders and railway police blamed human error, noting that the particular stretch of track between the towns of Andria and Corato didn't have an automatic alert system that would engage if two trains were close by and on the same track. Rather, news reports said, the system relied on station masters phoning one another to advise of a departing train.

"Surely one of the two trains shouldn't have been there," said railway police Cmdr. Giancarlo Conticchio. "And surely there was an error. We need to determine the cause of the error," Conticchio said.

Italian Red Cross workers on Wednesday were shuttling family members to the morgue in Bari, the regional capital, to help identify the dead. Coroner Franco Introna told the ANSA news agency that 22 bodies were at the morgue, with a 23rd expected to arrive later from Andria.

Passengers described being thrown forward violently at the moment of impact, and then trying to free themselves from the tangle of metal, body parts and debris in the scorching midday sun.

"I don't know what happened, it all happened so quickly, I don't know," one woman, eight months pregnant, told The Associated Press. "I saw my mother on the ground, my father and my sister bleeding, I don't know, I don't know, even I don't know."

(China Daily 07/14/2016 page12)