The Bulgarian Post
2008-03-04 17:39:47

Wednesday is a day of national mourning for Bulgaria. The country experienced its worst rail disaster since 1992. The death toll rose to 9 from a fire that swept through two sleeper carriages on a train last week. The incident, which was initially reported to have killed 8 people, provoked a heated debate about safety standards at state railway company BDZ and prompted calls for the transport minister to resign.

"Last week, we received 8 badly burnt bodies and tiny remains of a suspected ninth body, which were mixed with animal remains. We confirmed today it was a human body," said Petko Lisaev, head of the forensic unit of Pleven Medical University.

62 people were in the two coaches when the fire broke out last Thursday as the train travelled from the capital Sofia to the northern town of Kardam. The cause of the fire remains unknown, although prosecutors have not ruled out arson.

The government set Wednesday as a day of national mourning for the disaster and said compensation of 10,000 levs ($7,790) per victim would be paid to families who lost loved ones.

Some survivors said the train lacked enough working fire-extinguishers and that railway workers failed to unlock some carriage doors. BDZ head Oleg Petkov however has defended railway safety standards and said initial investigations showed railway staff had acted professionally.

But opposition parties said the government had neglected train safety at BDZ and called for Transport Minister Petar Mutafchiev to resign, something the BTA state news agency said he did not rule out. The number of passengers served by the ailing state railway operator has dropped to about 35 million a year from over 110 million in the early 1990s, mainly due to declining quality.

The last big railway incident in the Balkan country was in August 1992, when 10 passengers died after their train collided with a cargo train.

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