The final death toll of one of Britain's worst rail disasters is expected to reach more than 100, it emerged yesterday. With 28 people confirmed dead following Tuesday's rail crash near Paddington station in London, police disclosed that a finger-tip search of a badly-burnt carriage was expected to yield many more bodies. Up to 100 people who may have been travelling on both trains remain unaccounted for.
As the tragedy unfolded, the Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, urged people to "brace ourselves now for an even higher death toll" after he and his wife, Cherie, visited some of the injured in a London hospital. Mr Blair said the government was "determined" to discover the cause of the tragedy and he acknowledged that public confidence in the rail service had taken a severe blow.
The Deputy Prime Minister, Mr John Prescott, announced an independent inquiry into train protection schemes designed to prevent trains from passing through red signals.
He also said he wanted the best safety system in place as quickly as possible - even if it cost £1 billion.
The inquiry announcement came as it emerged that the driver of the Thames train from Paddington to Bedwyn, which crossed into the path of the high-speed First Great Western Cheltenham to London train, may have passed through a red signal.
Questions are also being raised about the cause of the fire that engulfed the front carriages of both trains, contributing to the difficult task of retrieving victims and identifying them.
"(The fire) started immediately. It was a fireball," Supt Tony Thompson, of the British Transport Police, said. Both trains had been carrying diesel fuel, and the engines would have been very hot.
At least one of the tanks contained highly flammable kerosene and this may have been a crucial factor in causing the fire to spread quickly throughout the carriages. Safety experts are also considering whether overhead cables had sparked and contributed to the fire, which police said may have reached 1,000C in the first-class carriage where the last of the victims is likely to be found. A number of malicious calls have been made to police naming people who were not on the train and police have appealed to passengers who have returned home to inform the authorities that they are safe so they can be eliminated from the missing persons' list.
Kevin Rafter, Political Reporter, adds:
The Taoiseach has extended the Government's sympathy to the families of those bereaved, and to those injured, in the crash. Mr Ahern told the Dail that when he heard about "the terrible tragedy" on Tuesday morning he contacted the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, to convey his sympathy.
The Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton and the Labour leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, joined the Taoiseach in expressing their sympathy.