Istanbul
By Barıs Seckin
ROME
The death toll from a rail crash in southern Italy has been revised downward from 27 to 23, a local official said Wednesday.
Speaking at a press conference, Clara Minerva, the governor of Barletta Andria Trani, where the accident occurred, announced the revised death toll.
Minerva said that the number of bodies removed from the wreck debris totaled 23.
Tuesday’s head-on collision between two passenger trains between the towns of Corato and Andria in Puglia left more than 50 injured – eight critically – reported local media.
Italy’s Transport and Infrastructure Minister Graziano Delrio confirmed the death toll as 23 in a briefing to Parliament on Wednesday. Delrio said that Italian government would invest more to boost transportation safety.
Rescue teams ended their operations at the site and completed debris removal.
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.
