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Passenger train ploughs into another, injuring 50

A passenger train rammed into another at a station south of Rome, injuring about 50 people -- some critically -- and temporarily trapping others in the wreckage, officials said.

A train traveling from Rome to Cassino stopped on Tuesday at the station in Roccasecca, about 130km south of the capital, said Luigi Irdi, a Trenitalia spokesman. Another train, headed from Rome to Campobasso on the same track, slammed into the first train from behind at 3:20pm, he said.

Witnesses said they saw one passenger car slip on top of another.

"There was a loud impact and this train climbed over the other train," said Paola Molle, a 19-year-old student from Roccasecca who was parking her car about 30m away at the time of the accident.

"The people in the top car stuck their heads out the window and were looking down," Molle said in a telephone interview.

"They looked calm to me. Then people started getting out of the train and lying down on the ground," she said.

The cause of the collision was under investigation.

Two people sustained serious injuries, Irdi said. The most ser-iously hurt was an eight-year-old girl who was flown to San Camillo hospital in Rome with life-threatening injuries, Irdi said. She had been traveling with her parents and brother, who were taken to hospitals closer to the crash site.

The Swedish Consulate was notified because a group of Swedish students were on the train, although none appeared to have been injured, Irdi said.

Earlier, a hospital said it had admitted about "five or six" people who were critically injured in the crash.

Two people appeared to be missing -- possibly the parents of a girl who was on the train, Irdi said. But officials were not sure whether the parents were on board.

A number of people were trapped under the twisted metal of the wreckage, but all were freed by Tuesday night, officials said.
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