First bodies recovered from Alpine disaster

A winch system had been installed to lift the victims8217; charred remains out of the steep 3.2 km tunnel on the Kitzsteinhorn mountain, but the going was slow.

quot;The force of the fire was so great that the surroundings melted,quot; Lang told a news conference in the popular skiing village of Kaprun, at the foot of the 3,200-metre mountain. quot;We have to cut out, to dissect, each victim. It has to be possible for pathologists to reconstruct what happened, and this will take some time.quot;

Roland Ertl, army commander for Salzburg, said his troops had to make a 15-minute trek down 2,000 steps to the disaster site, then faced a 40-minute climb back up.

quot;This is very difficult work,quot; he told reporters.

Most of the dead in Saturday8217;s disaster were Austrian and German winter sports enthusiasts, but there was also a group of Japanese school children and eight US forces personnel based in Germany.

Britain8217;s Foreign Office said on Monday a British ski instructor was among the dead.

DNA testing will be needed to confirm the identities of the victims in a process which could take weeks, if not months.

Twelve people towards the rear of the train managed to smash their way out and flee downward, away from the noxious fumes. But countless others were overcome as they fled uphill, as were three people at the funicular railway8217;s mountain station.

Survivor Gerhard Hanetseder and his 12-year-old daughter had the good fortune to have boarded at the lower end of the train.

quot;We entered the tunnel and I said, there is a small fire.8217; After a bit, when we were in the tunnel, the train stopped automatically. Then the smoke came and panic started,quot; the 39-year-old from Galsbach in Upper Austria told ORF radio.

quot;We tried desperately to open the doors but we couldn8217;t. There was more and more panic because this tiny fire had turned into a big one and the whole cabin behind us had started burning.

quot;By chance, some of the passengers smashed a side window witha ski shoe or a ski or some other object. At what seemed like the last minute I saw a way out and thought we can do that too.

quot;I tried to take my daughter but she didn8217;t quite make it through. So I gave her a little push and she fell down into the tunnel. I followed. How I got out, I do not know because the gap wasn8217;t very wide. The fire was spreading more and more above me and we ran down this tunnel.quot;

Investigators were bombarded with questions by journalists over whether there were dangerous substances on the train, what fire precautions had been taken and why the driver had not opened the doors.

But they said there was no evidence to substantiate any of the speculation as to the cause of the inferno 8212; which included possible sabotage of the cog railway built in 1974.

quot;Based on our questioning and investigations there is no evidence of sabotage,quot; police chief Lang said. quot;We are investigating in all directions.quot;

Kaprun8217;s youth hostel remained off-limits to all but the distraught friends and relatives of the dead helping investigators determine the identities of the bodies in the tunnel. Inside, not just victims8217; relatives, but also rescue workers were receiving counselling from a team of psychologists.

Outside, people stood around nervously, some smoking, as clusters of candles lit in memory of the dead burned on the pavement.