Rescuers have suspended efforts to recover the bodies of some 170 passengers killed when fire swept through a funicular train in the Austrian Alps, the governor of the province of Salzburg said, reported AFP Sunday.
Twelve people managed to escape an inferno in an Austrian funicular train which killed some 170 people, the governor of Salzburg province said in a press conference here Sunday.
"Twelve people were able to rescue themselves," the governor added.
Earlier the operation to recover some 170 bodies from the charred wreckage of the funicular train in the Austrian Alps began Sunday.
The teams of experts made their way at dawn up to the burned wreckage of the train, which is stuck in a tunnel that carves through the Kitzsteinhorn glacier ski resort 350 kilometers (220 miles) west of Vienna.
The railcar was consumed by a blaze early Saturday in one of the deadliest Alpine disasters ever.
But before attempting to remove the bodies, experts began to check whether the train was in danger of sliding down the rails.
Officials have warned that the train may be perched in a precarious position in the narrow tunnel because the intense fire may have damaged cables keeping it from sliding down the slope, officials said -- KAPRUN (AFP)
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