At least 25 killed in Italy train crash

Authorities investigating the train crash in Italy that has killed at least 25 people are focusing on an antiquated phone alert system.

Union leaders and railway police blamed the crash on human error, saying the alert system in place on the stretch of track involved in the accident relied on station masters phoning one another to advise of a departing train.

Other systems used in Italy are automatic, and engage if two trains are close by on the same track.

"Surely one of the two trains shouldn't have been there," railway police commander Giancarlo Conticchio said. "And surely there was an error. We need to determine the cause of the error."

Italian Red Cross workers were shuttling family members to the morgue in Puglia's regional capital Bari on Wednesday to help identify the dead.

The trains involved in the crash were operated by private Bari-based rail company Ferrotramviaria.

Italy Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has promised a full and swift investigation into the train crash that killed at least 25 people on Tuesday.

He said: "Tears and grief for the victims and their families, but also a lot of anger. We demand clarity over what happened in Puglia.

"We will remain at the side of the people of Puglia in this moment of great pain and desperation", he added later in the evening.

Mr Renzi said Transport Minister Graziano Delrio would report to parliament on Wednesday.

The death toll in Tuesday morning's head-on train crash in Italy has been raised from 20 to 25.

Three carriages were torn apart when the two trains crashed into each other on a line with a single track.

The accident happened on a stretch of track linking the small towns of Corato and Andria in the southeastern Puglia region.

Rescue workers said the death toll could climb higher as some of the 50 injured are in a serious condition.

The Italian government has promised a full and swift investigation.

At least 20 people have been killed after two passenger trains crashed head-on in Italy.

The collision happened on Tuesday morning near the town of Andria on a stretch of track connecting the coastal cities of Bari and Barletta.

Richard Pallot reports:

A woman who is eight months pregnant was on board a train in Italy when it crashed head-on into another, killing 20.

The woman said she was "thrown forward" during the collision, before she saw her mother on the ground and her father and sister bleeding.

The crash happened at midday on Tuesday in an olive grove on flat terrain between the towns of Andria and Corato, about 200 km east of Naples, on a line with a single track.

The cause is not yet known.

• Train crash wreck 'as if an airplane fell from the sky'
• Italian PM: Train crash is a 'moment of tears'

The mayor of Corato in Italy's southern Puglia region where the train crashed said the scene is horrific but that rescue work is ongoing.

Mayor Massimo Mazzilli said rescue workers had just pulled out a passenger alive and were poised to extract a second one.

On his Facebook page, Mazzilli posted photos of the mangled steel trains that collided Tuesday.

He wrote: "It's as disaster, as if an airplane fell. Rescue workers and civil protection is on the scene, but unfortunately there are victims!"

The death toll from the Italian train crash has risen to 20, an official told Reuters.

Dozens of people have been taken to hospital, some with serious injuries, he added.

The head-on collision between two trains happened on a single stretch of track in countryside between the towns of Corato and Andria, in the southern heel of Italy.

Footage has emerged from the scene of a train crash in Italy in which at least 12 people have died.

Italian firefighters have said that as well as 12 dead, scores of people have been injured in the train crash in the south of the country.

Emergency services are currently at the scene.

Italy's prime minister says the train crash that left at least a dozen dead "is a moment of tears".

Matteo Renzi pledged not to rest until the cause of the crash is determined.

Renzi was speaking in Milan after the head-on collision in the southern region of Puglia on Tuesday morning.