22 dead in head-on train crash in southern Italy

At least two passengers were pulled alive from the crumpled wreckage as the rescue operation took place in the scorching heat.

Premier Matteo Renzi travelled to the scene, where prosecutors and investigators were at work trying to determine why two trains were on a single track.

Railway police Commander Giancarlo Conticchio told Sky TG24 that the number of dead was 22 with 43 people injured, adding that the numbers could change.

Officials stressed the final toll would not be known until the train cars had been pulled apart; a giant crane arrived at the scene to remove the mangled debris.

"Surely one of the two trains shouldn't have been there. And surely there was an error. We need to determine the cause of the error," Conticchio said.

An aerial photo showed the cars crumpled together like an accordion, and forced off the tracks at sharp angles. The two trains, each with four cars, collided head-on in an olive grove on flat terrain between the towns of Andria and Corato.

The accident occurred around 11.30 AM some 50 kilometers (30 miles) northwest of the Puglia regional capital, Bari.

One elderly couple described their ordeal to local television Telesveva. The man, his head covered in gauze, said he was knocked to the ground, while his wife, still barefoot, described how she came across body parts as she freed him.

"I pulled him from under the debris, myself barefoot, from under the debris and metal," the woman, who was not identified, told local TV. "I went to my husband screaming. I pulled him by the legs and feet. I climbed past people in pieces, how sad. There was nothing I could do.

A woman who is eight months pregnant described being thrown forward.

"I don't know what happened, it all happened so quickly, I don't know," she told The Associated Press. "I saw my mother on the ground, my father and my sister bleeding, I don't know, I don't know, even I don't know."

Another survivor described the scene as 'hell'. Corato Mayor Massimo Mazzilli said debris was scattered all over the countryside.

"It's a disaster as if an airplane fell," Mazzilli said on his Facebook page, where he posted photos of the crash.

Premier Renzi pledged a thorough investigation. He returned to Rome from Milan to monitor the situation, and then visited the scene of the accident. His transport minister, Graziano Delrio, as well as local prosecutors were at the scene.