Evening star., 1962-05-31
RAIN

INAIN
Continued From Page Al
mare Of bodies and twisted
steel.
Holiday in Italy
Today is Ascension Day, a
holiday in Italy, and Saturday
is the country's national aoli-
day in celebration of the forma-
ton of the Italian Republic.
The two holidays gave many
Italians an opportunity for a
four-day vacation. And be-
tween 600 and TOO crowded
aboard the early morning
Milan-Genoa train.
AS it stood in Voghera station
the freight came into the yards
at so miles an hour and crashed
into the last coach, ramming
completely through it.
Identification of the victims
was slow. None of the first dead
and injured identified was
American.
Eight hours after the crash.
workers with blowtorcheS still
were trying to clear a way for
doctors to reach two men and
a woman seen to be still alive
in the wreckage.
Water COols Plates
Other rescue workers poured
cold water on the torch-heated
steel plates to keep them from
burning the trapped victims.
Nurses worked III once-white
uniforms that had become
stained req with blood.
A priest crawled into the
tangle of wreckage to give the
last rites of the Roman Cath
olic Church to the dead and
dying. He reported that there
might be as many as 10 more
dead in the smashed rear
coach.
Scores of residents Of Vog-
hera hurried to hospitals as
blood donors in response to
radioed appeals for blood,
blood and more blood" to save
the critically injured.
DR.. Franco Castellani tainted
from fatigue after working all
night amputating arms and
legs to help rescuers free VIC
Tins from the wreckage. When
he was revived he asked for a
cup of coffee and then crawled
back into the tangle Of steel
to continue his work.
An unidentified two-year-old
blond baby girl in the doomed
last passenger coach slept
through the wreck. She was
taken to a hospital, the only
uninjured survivor from the
shattered coach. No one knew
who she was.
Bodies Badly Burned
The dead first were laid in
a row along the railway tracks.
Then they were placed directly
in coffins. Many of the bodies
were badly charred or mangled
and Identification was difficult.
Most of the injured and all
Of the dead were in the last
two coaches of the 10-coach
passenger train en- route south
from Milan to Genoa and
Ventimiglia on the French
frontier.
The coaches were so full that
passengers had to stand in the
aisles.
Doctors amputated the legs
of a woman and a man pinned
helplessly in the tangle of
smashed steel.
Three hours after the wreck,
an infant was found inside one
wrecked coach alive and un-
hurt.
Doctors hung blood plasma
bottles from jagged outcrop-
pings of metal to administer
to the living as police and fire
men laid one body after an
other in a row alongside the
tracks.
Cries for Help Heard
AS blow torches cracked and
opened up more pockets in the
wreckage, more broken bodies
were pulled out. Feeble cries
for help spurred rescue workers
on.
The freight, pulling 40 empty
petroleum tank and cement
cars was bound for Genoa from
Lecco on Lake Como and had
left Milan a short time after
the passenger train.
The freight locomotive vir-
tually sliced the rear coach in
two and lodged itself inside.
The impact also tore open the
next coach. The first freight
car behind the locomotive was
upended. and freight cars at
the rear were derailed.