ROME, July 12 (Xinhua) -- At least 20 people were killed and dozens injured as two trains collided and clashed head-on in southern Italy on Tuesday, local media reported.
According to the latest reports of ANSA news agency and Rai state television, the collision happened on a single-track railway around 11:30 a.m. local time in the southern Puglia region.
After the incident, rescue operation was in full swing. Police, emergency personnel and ambulances rushed to the crash site, located in a countryside area between the towns of Ruvo di Puglia and Corato.
Firefighters were at work to extract survivors from the twisted metal of the first two cars on each train, but there could be more victims, according to ANSA sources.
Rai said all hospitals in the region were involved in the emergency operations. Three helicopters were also deployed to rush the most seriously injured passengers to nearby hospitals, including a child aged just a few years who was reportedly extracted from the wreck.
A technical failure could have led to the disaster, Rai said. The two regional trains, generally used by commuters and students, are run by an entirely private local company named Ferrotramviaria, it added.
"The situation is tragic. We saw two crumpled trains and a lot of people transported on several ambulances which were in trouble in reaching the open countryside," said a journalist at a local newspaper who rushed to the spot, Lucia Olivieri.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi immediately left Milan in northern Italy, where he was about to inaugurate an exhibition, for Rome. "We will not stop until we will have found those responsible for the accident," he stressed.
The last major rail disaster in Italy happened in 22 December 2009 when a freight train derailed in Viareggio, in the Central Italy's Tuscany region, more than 30 people confirmed dead in the accident.
