Deadly Train Fire in Bulgaria

[John Ashworth]

6 Charred Bodies Identified after Deadly Train Fire in Bulgaria

2 March 2008, Sunday


Six out of the eight dead bodies that were recovered from the charred carriages of the burned-out train in Bulgaria were identified on Sunday.

These are four men and two women, officials announced before revealing the names of the victims, whose identities have been confirmed by DNA analyses.

Valeriya Zheleva Zheleva, a 20-year-old student at Sofia university, was the first to be identified. The other five casualties are Maya Masheva, Professor Rasho Rashev, 64, director of the National Archaeological Institute with the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Daniel Vichev, 25, Stoyan Kovachev, 20 and Kalcho Stefanov.

More than 60 people were in the two coaches hit by the blaze on board the nine-car service from the capital Sofia to the north-eastern town of Kardam.

Four of the dead in the Sofia-Kardam train fire Thursday night are men, and the other four are women, the head of the Forensic Medicine Service in the city of Pleven Professor Dr. Petko Lisaev announced on Saturday.

In his words, the bodies are severely disfigured by the high temperature, and the forensic science methods would not be useful for identifying them.

"We took DNA probes, and we also collected pieces of clothes which could help the relatives recognize the bodies. The relatives must call us to tell us details about those missing such as their body size, height, previous surgeries and injuries, teeth characteristics so that we can compared them to what we have found", Dr. Lisaev explained.

Lisaev also said that one of the dead persons was very short but it was most likely a young woman rather than a child. The DNA analysis, however, is expected to take several days.

Detelina Nikolova, the Mayor of the city Dobrich in northeast Bulgaria where the burned train was destined to, announced that six persons from the city and the region were missing.

Vasil Vichev from Dobrich, the father of the 25-year old Daniel Vichev, who was confirmed to be among the casualties on Sunday, blamed the incident on the state institutions.

The university student from Dobrich Stanimir Angelov retold the words of a girl he helped get out of the burning train. According to Angelov, the girl told him she was woken up by a bursting light bulb, which set the window curtain on fire.

Angelov also said the people in the carriage tried the both doors but they were locked and could not be opened.

The fire brigade arrived at the place in 30 minutes, and the two fire cars spent their water in three minutes, according to witnesses. Angelov and his friend remember a man about 50 years of age whom they never saw after they got out of the train.

"I am still unable to confirm any information regarding the exact causes of the fire; the investigation is under way. Our specialists have found that the fire was not caused by the heating installation", Oleg Petkov, executive director of the Bulgarian State Railways (BDZ), told Darik Radio.

With respect to the bad state of many of the railway cars, Petkov stated that the BDZ annually suffers losses from damages and thefts worth BGN 4 M, and that its staff was incapable of dealing with that situation by itself.

The BDZ and the local police in the town of Cherven Bryag have opened two hot lines for information about the people who travelled in the Sofia-Kardam train.

The Bulgarian Interior Minister Rumen Petkov announced Saturday that the case was taken up by the National Investigation Service. He added that the assumption that the fire had been caused by a broken light bulb was only one of the hypotheses.

Sofia News Agency