Freight train derails in Italy, kills 12, burns 50

VIAREGGIO, Italy — A freight train carrying gas derailed and exploded in the midst of a small Tuscan town, setting off a fire that killed at least 12 people — many as they slept in their homes — and injured at least 50, Italian officials said Tuesday.

The 14-car train was traveling from the northern city of La Spezia to Pisa when a car derailed while traveling through a residential neighborhood beside the train station in the Tuscan seaside town of Viareggio just before midnight Monday.

A train car filled with liquefied petroleum gas, or LPG, sprang a leak, causing an explosion that collapsed five buildings and set fire to a vast area. Homes crumbled or burned, killing residents as they slept.

The exact death toll was unclear as hundreds of rescuers searched through the rubble for survivors.

Guido Bertolaso, the chief of the Civil Protection Department, told reporters at the scene that 12 people had been killed, the ANSA and Apcom news agencies said. He said four people were missing.

Gennaro Tornatore, a spokesman for the firefighters, said 15 people had died, while an official with the hospital in Viareggio, Stefano Pasquinucci, said the death toll stood at 16.

Many of the injured suffered severe burns.

“We saw a ball of fire rising up to the sky,” said witness Gianfranco Bini, who lives in a building overlooking the station. “We heard three big rumbles, like bombs. It looked like war had broken out.”

His son, Gianni Bini, said he saw a truck driver running away on fire.

“This truck was passing by … when it was hit by the heat wave and I saw the driver ablaze, getting off and walking away,” he said.

Videos uploaded onto YouTube showed a huge plume of fire and smoke towering above Viareggio’s low houses. An inferno raged through the night, consuming buildings and cars, while the sound of sirens and explosions pierced the air. TV images showed residents, their bodies blackened by the smoke, being carried away on stretchers.

Pope Benedict XVI expressed his “participation in the pain striking the whole town” and said in a telegram of condolences he was praying for the victims.

Bertolaso called the accident one of Italy’s worst railway tragedies. Premier Silvio Berlusconi, who was in Naples for a businessmen meeting, said he would go to Viareggio later Tuesday to take control of the situation.

It was the deadliest train accident since January 2005, when 17 people were killed in a head-on collision between a passenger train and a freight train. The collision occurred in thick fog on a single track line near Bologna in northern Italy, and led to calls for improved train safety.

In Monday’s overnight derailment, 10 buildings and dozens of cars were at least partially burned, firefighters said.

Officials said the death toll might increase as 300 firefighters and other rescue teams searched through the rubble.

The city of Lucca’s top government official, Prefect Carmelo Aronica, told Italy’s RAI state TV that at least 50 people were injured, with 35 hospitalized with severe burns. The ANSA news agency reported that three children were pulled alive from the rubble of their collapsed home shortly before daybreak Tuesday.

About 1,000 people were evacuated from their homes as a precaution, said Viareggio Mayor Luca Lunardini. Tents were set up around the town hall for about 200 people.

As the firefighters worked to contain the blaze, teams specialized in dealing with nuclear, biological and chemical threats were being brought in to prevent the other gas tanks from exploding. Officials said the fire was contained after several hours, but a smell of burning hung in the air.

Some of the victims, including a child, were killed in their homes, said Raffaele Gargiulo, a police spokesman for the nearby city of Lucca, which is in charge of Viareggio. Two drivers on the road alongside the tracks were also killed.

Others suffered severe burns and died at the hospital.

“The condition of the bodies is such that it will be very difficult to identify them,” Gargiulo said.

Italy’s state-run railways company said the first rail car was registered with the Polish company PKP, while the other 13 cars were registered with the Deutsche Bahn, the German railways. The cars were driven by a locomotive of the Italian railways Trenitalia.

The statement said the first car appeared to derail and explode, pulling another four cars with it. The cause was not immediately clear. However, a spokeswoman for Deutsche Bahn, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with company policy, said “there were none of our cars in the train.”

GATX Rail Europe, which is based in Vienna, said it owns the rail cars. CFO Werner Mitteregger added he did not have any details on what caused the accident.

He said a company representative has been sent to Viareggio to gather information. He had no immediate comment on the state or age of the rail cars, saying they were still trying to identify them.

The train’s two engineers were lightly injured. While being questioned in the hospital, they said they felt an impact some 650 feet (200 meters) outside the station, shortly before part of the train flew off the tracks, Gargiulo said.

He told The Associated Press by telephone that the derailing may have been caused by damage to the tracks or by a problem with the train’s braking system.

EU Transport Commissioner Antonio Tajani called on EU countries to step up safety checks of Europe’s rail transport sector, which is increasingly run by private operators.

“Now that we have liberalization we have to step up checks because previously there was national inspection systems, currently its a more wide ranging task and more difficult,” Tajani said.

He said he would recommend more frequent checks than the once-in-six-year inspections currently carried out on rail cargo cars, adding that inspections should be based on how many kilometers the wagons run up.

Associated Press Writers Alessandra Rizzo in Rome, Veronika Oleksin in Vienna and Constant Brand in Brussels contributed to this report.