Recovery teams begin removing victims from Austrian cable car disaster
By Geir Moulson, Associated Press, 11/13/00
KAPRUN, Austria -- Recovery teams removed the first bodies from an Alpine tunnel Monday, while grieving relatives brought toothbrushes and razors of their loved ones, hoping to help forensics experts match DNA to identify the badly charred bodies.
Most of the 159 victims of Saturday's cable car fire lacked "distinguishing facial features," and tattoos and scars were no longer possible to see in heavily scarred skin, Edith Tutsch-Bauer, chief forensic pathologist in Salzburg's University Institute, said Monday. Ski suits were burned away.
The toiletries families were bringing would have tissue and beard stubble, she said. It was unclear how long DNA tests could take. Under the best of circumstances, such tests would take three to four days per person, said Franz Lang, chief of Salzburg's criminal police.
The tunnel finally became free of smoke Sunday, more than a day after the fire that destroyed the cable car. Recover teams entered from the top end to avoid any risk of the car slipping downhill.
What they found exposed them to what Salzburg provincial Gov. Franz Schausberger called "a heavy psychological toll."
"It must be said that the salvage operation is extremely difficult," Schausberger told reporters.
The cause of the fire remained unclear. "We're investigating as far as the cause is concerned -- really in every direction," said Lang.
Authorities also were uncertain about the total number of people who boarded the cable car Saturday morning, but said the identities of 159 victims were near certain.
Among them were 92 Austrians; 37 Germans; 10 Japanese; eight Americans; four Slovenes and two Dutch; one person from the Czech Republic and one person from Great Britain. Authorities had names but no nationalities for the remaining four people. It was believed that the car, with a capacity of 180 people, was full.
Investigators reported that 46 bodies had been recovered and had begun to arrive in Salzburg to a morgue where forensics experts could do DNA tests. High winds, however, had stalled the transport of the bodies by mid-afternoon.
Lang said that large parts of the car had melted, making it difficult to separate the bodies from the car itself.
"We will need some time for this work," he said
Officials said 12 people saved themselves from the cable car after they broke its window with a ski. Six people who had been waiting at the top of the tunnel also survived. One of the survivors was in serious condition with damage to the lungs. The others were released from hospital Sunday.
One survivor, Gerhard Hanetseder from the town Gallspach in Upper Austria, told state radio that smoke entered the cabin of the cable car soon after it began its ascent. After the car entered the tunnel, Hanneseder noticed the fire.
"Then panic spread. We tried desperately to get the doors open. The panic got ever worse. In the meantime the entire cabin was on fire," he said. "By chance, a few of the passengers, using ski boots or ski poles or other implements tried to smash the Plexiglas windows.
"I saw in the last minute someone jump out and then I tried to grab my daughter, I gave her a push. And then I also somehow got out."
Volunteers had drawn up lists with names of the approximately 2,500 people who had made it up to the glacier slope before the fire and who subsequently returned to their accommodations.
Those missing were presumed killed by flames and acrid smoke inside the car or in the tunnel while trying to escape.
Grieving townsfolk gathered in Kaprun's church for a Mass focusing on the tragedy.
Later Sunday, Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel and his deputy, Susanne Riess-Passer, joined relatives of the victims for a private memorial service at the site of the disaster, which remained sealed off.
"Sometimes we just have to live with our own powerlessness," Schuessel said later. "We have an extremely high level of security and safety. But we can only do what is possible."
Schausberger said that a majority of those killed were "undoubtedly young people." Among the dead were German ski champion Sandra Schmitt and her parents, the Bavarian Interior Ministry said. Schmitt, a mogul skier, finished ninth at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.
Also among the dead were 32 people from the Upper Austrian city of Wels, including 13 municipal employees.
Among the missing Americans was a family of four, including two children. Two others serving in the Army were also unaccounted for -- a couple who were engaged last week.
The Austrian government declared Saturday and Sunday national days of mourning. A national memorial service is to be held Friday in Salzburg.
The disaster was believed to be the worst involving skiers being transported by cable-pulled car to skiing slopes. The death toll surpassed the number killed the Italian ski resort of Cavalese in 1976, when 42 people died after a cable carrying suspended cable cars snapped.
A medical assistant watches a relative of Kitzsteinhorn victims carrying flowers to a church service in Kaprun in Austria's western province of Salzburg. (Reuters)