Identities emerge of some train fire victims

In the wake of the deadliest disaster of its kind, authorities on Sunday began informing anxious relatives of the names of some 153 skiers and snowboarders believed killed inside a mountain tunnel after fire devastated the cable car they were riding in.

In the wake of the deadliest disaster of its kind, authorities on Sunday began informing anxious relatives of the names of some 153 skiers and snowboarders believed killed inside a mountain tunnel after fire devastated the cable car they were riding in.

Salzburg Governor Franz Schausberger told reporters Sunday that authorities were 90 per cent sure of the identities of 85 of the victims. Of these, 30 were Austrians from the town of Wels, 20 were Germans, 10 were Japanese, three were U.S. army personnel and seven were from a ski club in Bavaria. The others were Austrians.

The identities apparently had been established by eliminating those from others accounted for. Volunteers had drawn up lists with names of the approximately 2,500 people who had made it up to the glacier slope on the cable car before the fire on Saturday morning and who subsequently returned to their accommodations. Those missing were presumed either killed by flames and acrid smoke inside the car or in the tunnel while trying to escape.

Among those still missing Sunday were eight Americans, part of a group of mostly military personnel from Wuerzburg, Germany, and their dependents, said Maj. Drew Stathis, one of the group.

The missing included a family of four, including two children. Two others serving in the Army were also unaccounted for - a couple who had gotten engaged last week.

Another American and his son are also missing, but no further information was available about them.

"It looks really grim," Stathis said. "Last night we were told at about 11 o'clock that everyone was down from the mountain."

Stathis said his group was returning to Wuerzburg while he was staying behind to await further news.

Schausberger said retrieval of the dead bodies was delayed by toxic fumes still inside the tunnel and the need to secure the charred car.

The cable car had been filled to capacity with skiers and snowboarders, and the cause of the fire wasn't immediately clear.

On Sunday, Erik Buxbaum, Austria's public security chief, said it was possible that the fire started already as the cable car on rails disappeared into the mountainside.

"We have received information that the light of a fire was already visible to outside witnesses as the train was entering the tunnel," Buxbaum said.

Buxbaum said when the driver noticed the blaze it was already too late.

He said it was impossible at present to comment on rumors that the train was carrying diesel fuel or firecrackers or that a bomb had been planted.

According to Buxbaum, rescue teams were working on a plan to salvage what was left of the dead bodies from the charred wreckage.

Most of the victims apparently managed to escape from the compartment but were killed by fumes while trying to run up narrow stairs leading out of the tunnel, Manfred Mueller, the head of cable car technical operations, told reporters. Those who survived apparently ran the opposite way, thus avoiding most of the smoke being blown upward through the tunnel by strong drafts.

Authorities told reporters that fresh air sucked into the tunnel fed the flames, which apparently broke out in the front section occupied by a cable car attendant. The blaze "spread at a raging speed - like in a chimney," said Schausberger.

The 19 survivors apparently included 12 who escaped from the car and seven waiting at the top of the tunnel. Authorities earlier had said nine had escaped the car and nine from the tunnel's top.

One was in serious condition with injuries to the lungs suffered from breathing in noxious fumes.

Speaking to the Austria Press Agency, an unidentified survivor said the crowd trapped inside the compartment "screamed ... and tried desperately to find a way out."

"My only thought was to get out, and I could save myself in the last second because a window was kicked in and I could fight my way outside."

Schausberger said that a majority of those killed were "undoubtedly young people." The Austrian government declared Saturday and Sunday national days of mourning.

The Austria Press Agency described the disaster as the worst of any involving skiers being transported by cable-pulled car to skiing slopes. The disaster's death toll surpassed the number killed the Italian ski resort of Cavalese in 1976 when 42 people died after a cable carrying suspended cable cars snapped.

Among the dead were three people who were waiting in a passenger area at the tunnel's upward end, Schausberger said. They died of smoke inhalation. Also reported killed was a cable car attendant in an otherwise empty car that was going toward the valley as the one carrying the other victims was going up in the tunnel.

The cable car, pulled on rails underground for most of the more than 3,200 meters (yards) up the Kitzsteinhorn mountain to the glacier region, caught fire about 600 meters (yards) inside the mountain, in the heart of the Austrian Alps.

The fire started in the morning, but rescuers were unable to reach the compartment where the fire broke out until after nightfall. Those who ventured inside said the car was burned down to the chassis.

Schausberger said he was at a loss to explain what happened.

"Everything was fine," when inspectors from the transport ministry checked the cable car system in September, he told reporters.

Mueller, the head of technical operations for the underground cable car system, said the car operator was told to open all doors in the five to 10 minutes between the sounding of an alarm and the sudden break of radio contact with the cable car attendant.

The cable car caught fire while thousands of people were enjoying late fall sunshine and balmy temperatures on the glacier slopes on what was the opening day of the region's ski season.

About 100 local people, including firefighters and rescue workers, gathered Saturday evening at a fire hall for a memorial service for the dead. Three of the bodies - apparently of those who died in the passenger waiting area - were placed in closed caskets in the hall.

Built in 1974, the cable railway was one of the first of its kind with a tunnel passing through a mountainside.