Austrians mourn 170 killed in cable-car fire

SALZBURG, Austria -- As distraught relatives gathered miles away from the scene of the cable-car fire that killed about 170 people, plumes of smoke were still spewing from the mouth of the tunnel where the carriages had caught fire.

Ashen-faced and tearful friends and relatives of those missing waited on Saturday for word on their loved ones, while emergency crews tried to establish who had died and who was unaccounted for in the popular ski resort area of the Austrian Alps.

The majority of those killed were believed to be children and youths.

Rescuers at the scene of the inferno said there was "no hope of any more survivors" after just a handful of people out of an estimated 180 passengers escaped alive.

RESOURCE See the location of the cable train disaster in the Austrian Alps   EMERGENCY NUMBERS Emergency numbers for relatives and friends. 0043 654 720000 0043 628 144300    VIDEO CNN's Rym Brahimi reports on the disaster that struck an Austrian funicular train Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media) Watch video of the rescue operation Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)     AUDIO Journalist Gerhard Rettenegger reports from Austria 0.36 MB / 33 seconds AIFF or WAV sound     RESOURCES   ·  The Kitzsteinhorn Glacier   ·  Cable car accidents in Europe

Firefighters wearing protective breathing gear busied themselves at the tunnel entrance -- and some who came out said the car was torched down to the chassis.

The victims were riding the cable car up Kitzsteinhorn mountain to enjoy late autumn sunshine and balmy weather at the popular glacial peak and ski resort. Others were on their way to a snowboarding competition to mark the opening of the ski season.

The carriage is pulled by cable through a tunnel for most of the more than 3,000 metres up the Kitzsteinhorn mountain to the ski slopes.

But as the car was pulled through the long tunnel that burrows into the mountain, fire broke out, trapping the carriage about 600 metres inside the tunnel.

Experts suggested the massive steel cable pulling the cars up the slope may have snapped before the fire broke out.

There was no escape for most of those inside as the fire raged on for hours. Only a small number of people -- some officials said eight, others said 18 -- managed to save themselves from the burning compartment, which was apparently full to its 180-person capacity.

Afterward, road access to the tunnel was blocked by police, with even friends and relatives unable to get access to the site.

Instead, down the valley in the resort town of Kaprun, they gathered in a sports hall to wait for officials to compile lists of of those killed in the accident.

As night fell and a full moon rose over the picture-postcard Alpine village, many had no idea if their children, friends, brothers and sisters were dead or alive. One man from the neighbouring town of Mittersill was waiting, hoping that his son Marcus, 16, would be among the survivors.

"My son went up there with one of his friends," said the man, who asked not to be identified. "A friend works at the cable car gave him two free passes."

Nearby, a woman and her daughter clasped each other, crying wordlessly. At one end of the hall, volunteers entered name after name into computers, recording people who were still alive and had been tracked down in nearby hotels.

Officials said the recovery of the corpses would begin on Sunday.

Most of the dead are presumed to have been young people from Austria en route to Zell Am See, the ski site, which opened its winter season on Saturday.

Among the missing and presumed dead were nine children, members of a snowboard association in the Austrian province of Burgenland.

A statement released by the Air Force at Ramstein Air Base in Germany said about 81 Americans from two Kaiserslautern Military Community ski clubs were in Kaprun, where the train accident happened.

The statement said all but two of them had been accounted for.

Salzburg Governor Franz Schausberger suggested that those trapped inside when the fire broke out early in the morning didn't have a chance. Because of the draft at both ends of the tunnel, air currents fanned the flames, and the blaze "spread at a raging speed -- like in a fireplace," Schausberger said.

However, authorities told CNN that the severity of the fire was disturbing given the cable car had been built with fire-retardant material.

Among the lucky ones were eight German survivors.

Hospital officials said they managed to find their way through choking smoke to the outside ramp leading up to the tunnel entrance after a "very strongly built man," smashed a window with a ski pole. They were rushed to a local hospital.

A group of about 40 Slovenes also had luck on their side: They turned around on the way to the tunnel after their bus developed problems.

Governor Schausberger on Saturday declared a day or mourning in the region.

Most of the victims were, "primarily young people, who perhaps decided early today on the spur of the moment to do some winter sports," he told Germany's NTV television.

"We cannot find the right words at the moment," he said.

The Red Cross called in a team of 40 psychologists to treat those involved with the tragedy and rescue effort and authorities were consulting lists of more than 2,000 skiers who had registered in the area to determine who is missing.

The tragedy is thought to be the most serious ever involving cable-driven ski transportation. In 1976, 42 people died after a cable snapped at the Italian ski resort of Cavalese.

The cable car system, built in 1974, was modernised six years ago to include two state-of-the-art cars and technology. It can transport 1,500 people from the valley station to the summit each hour.

The system has never before recorded an accident, said Hans Wallner, the director of the tourist region of Kaprun.

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Kaprun Cable Car Company
Kitzsteinhorn Glacier - Tourist information
Austrian Red Cross (In Austrian)
Republic of Austria
The World's Longest Railway Tunnels

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