PAMUKOVA, Turkey: Turkish rescue workers with dogs sifted through wreckage on Friday after a recently inaugurated high-speed train came off the rails, killing 36 people and injuring 81.

Newspapers and trade unionists blamed the government for Thursday's accident, saying it had ignored experts' safety warnings over the new fast service between Istanbul, the commercial hub, and the capital Ankara.

"Serial murder" ran the headline in the mass-circulation Hurriyet newspaper.

CNN Turk television said three crew members had been detained for questioning.

The new express train, inaugurated by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan amid much fanfare last month, was part of an extensive modernization of Turkey's creaking rail network.

Highlighting public anger, a woman who lost her husband in the crash screamed: "This train should not have been running!" at Erdogan when he visited the site of the crash overnight.

Several newspapers republished pictures of Erdogan in a railway guard's cap seeing off the first train on June 4.

Officials say the accident had probably been caused by a mechanical fault. But media also focused on the dilapidated state of the network, saying the track in question was more than 100 years old.

Passengers were quoted as saying that the train was travelling very fast at the time of the accident, much more than the 75-80 kilometres per hour cited by officials on Thursday night.

Army conscripts helped the rescue workers clear away debris, and cranes were lifting the wagons.

Many children and four foreigners - two Germans and two Jordanians - were among the dead, CNN Turk television said.

The head of Turkey's transport union, Fehmi Kutan, accused the authorities of disregarding basic safety regulations and he also claimed that parts of the damaged track had been removed before a proper investigation could be carried out.

"Those responsible for this disaster are the prime minister, the transport minister and the railway management," he alleged.

Asked whether any officials would resign, Deputy Prime Minister Abdullatif Sener said: "It is too early to comment, I do not want to prejudge the investigation."

Hurriyet quoted civil engineering expert Aydin Erel as saying that he had warned 15 days ago that the train was unsafe.

"The infrastructure is not fit for a fast-link train. I would not get on this train and I would not let my loved ones use it," he was quoted as telling a conference before the crash.

But the Vatan newspaper carried an interview with Transport Minister Binali Yildirim, conducted just hours before the accident, in which he said the new train was perfectly safe.

In comments on Thursday night, Erdogan said the accident might have been unavoidable.

"These types of crashes can happen anywhere in the world," he said.

(China Daily 07/24/2004 page1)