Rome – A passenger train rammed into another that was stopped at a station south of Rome on Tuesday, injuring about 50 people – some critically – and trapping others in the wreckage, officials said.
A train traveling from Rome to Cassino had stopped at the station in Roccasecca, about 80 miles south of the capital, said Luigi Irdi, spokesman for the national railway, Trenitalia.
Another train, headed from Rome to Campobasso on the same track, slammed into the back of the first train.
The cause of the crash was under investigation. Television footage showed one passenger car piled on top of another.
“What happened is clear: A train rammed another train,” Irdi said. “Why it happened is impossible to say” at this time.
Two people were seriously injured, Irdi said. One, a girl about 10 or 11 years old, was flown to the Gemelli Polyclinic in Rome, the hospital where Pope John Paul II was treated shortly before his death.
Earlier, a hospital said it had admitted about six critically injured people.
All the people who had been trapped in the twisted metal were freed by Tuesday night, officials said.
It was the second train crash in Europe in two days. On Monday, a commuter train collided with an oncoming passenger train in southern Poland, injuring at least seven people.
Intesaconsumatory, which represents consumer groups in Italy, released a statement after Tuesday’s crash calling for an upgrade of the country’s rail network.
