The death toll from Poland's worst train crash in more than two decades reached 16, with 58 injured, Sunday, as rescue work continued to extract bodies from the wreckage of the head-on collision in the south of the country, according to dpa. Rescue workers had by Sunday afternoon retrieved the bodies of the 15th and 16th victims, as they worked to separate the crushed wagons and clear them off the tracks. Six of the dead have been identified, and include a female American, said Tomasz Ozimek, a prosecutor investigating the crash site. Autopsies will be conducted on Monday, he added. Among the injured were six Ukrainians, a Moldovan and a passenger who was likely from the Czech Republic, prosecutors said. President Bronislaw Komorowski visited a hospital in the city of Sosnowiec earlier Sunday, where some of the injured had been taken, and spoke with doctors and those less severely hurt. "I know from my own experience that sometimes contact with family is incredibly important, even the most important thing," Komorowski told the family of two injured women in a hospital in the city of Sosnowiec. "Things can only get better now. I wish you all the best," he said. Komorowski later visited the scene of the collision, a rural area surrounded by forests near the town of Szczechociny. A period of nationwide mourning would be announced once rescue workers finished clearing the wagons off the tracks, he said. The crash occurred at 8:57 pm (1957 GMT) Saturday when a seven-wagon train travelling to Warsaw collided with a four-wagon Krakow-bound train that was going in the opposite direction. The second train had been travelling on the wrong tracks, though it was unclear why. "There was no sudden braking, only the impact. Suddenly it got dark and the train stopped," passenger Dariusz Wisniewski told TVN 24. "When we got out, we saw what happened: injured, dead. I could not believe it." "This is the most tragic catastrophe in years," said Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who arrived at the scene late Saturday night. "We all feel for the victims and for the families of those who died." Locals from a nearby village had been among the first people to arrive on the scene and had helped to get the injured out of the overturned wagons. They later brought blankets and warm drinks. "We saw many people who could not get out of the train," a man identifying only as Adam told the Polish Press Agency. "We tried to break the glass in the windows to make it easier for them." Thirty of those injured in the crash were in a serious condition. The interior minister had said earlier it could not be ruled out that there were more bodies under the wreckage. "We cannot rule out that there could still be other bodies there, but we can say that only once the heavy machinery gets here and we begin lifting," he continued. Some 450 firefighters and 100 police officers searched the train until 4 am Sunday to get the injured but living victims out of the wagons. Ambulances and rescue helicopters took the injured to several nearby hospitals.
