1.
GV PAN EXTERIOR: Train derailed lying across embankment.
0.06

2.
SV. Men carrying body away in a sheet.
0.16

3.
SV: Workers trying to reach survivors as doctors stand-by.
0.21

4.
CU & SV: Gas torch being prepared to cut through wreckage.
0.30

5.
GV: Medical staff carrying away stretcher and then ZOOM INTO CU of workers sifting through wreckage.
0.42

6.
SV's: Bodies being carried on stretchers away from crash site to waiting ambulances. (4 SHOTS)
1.12


Investigators have started work on trying to establish how the two trains came to collide. They said the driver of the north-bound train apparently slowed down after he saw mud patches on the track. He applied the emergency brakes when the train began to slip, but seconds later the express train slammed into him. Meanwhile the influential Corriere Della Sera newspaper has called for decisive action to ensure that rail tracks were adequately protected from landslips, which often block Italian roads and railway lines. The Venice-Rome express was carrying players and officials of the Italian first division soccer team, Verona, but they have all been reported to have escaped serious injury.




Initials JS/2000


TELERECORDING

Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: It Italy at least 45 people have been killed and a further 100 injured after a high-speed express crashed into a derailed passenger train on one of the country's busiest railway lines on Saturday (15 April). The packed Venice-Rome Express hit the north-bound Lecce to Milan train at 100 kilometres an hour (60 mph) in a heavy rain storm and it has been described as the worst rail disaster in Italy in more than 10 years.

SYNOPSIS: The front four coaches of the train were left rolled down a steep embankment. First indications confirmed there would be a high death toll. The locomotive was sliced in half and its two drivers were killed instantly.

Volunteers and rescue tams were quick to the scene about 25 kilometres (15 miles) south of Bologna. Most victims were in the front coaches of the express which was carrying 250 first-class only passengers.

Medical teams and rescuers worked through the night under floodlights in search for survivors and to retrieve dead bodies from the wreckage.

One survivor said there were bodies everywhere. He said he sow people without arms or legs. Passengers on the express, including some American and Japanese families, were eating lunch at the time of the collision. Among the dead were the Deputy Prefect of Venice, Signor Paolo D'Elia, and the Chief Public Prosecutor of Bologna province, Signor Francesco Padoin. The line, which carries most of Italy's Trans-European trains, will be closed for at least three days.