The crash happened on a single stretch of track in countryside between the towns of Corato and Andria, police said.
Both trains were made up of four carriages.
An aerial image showed carriages smashed and crumpled by the head-on collision, with debris spread out on either side of the track.
"We are working with dozens of rescue teams to open up the carriages," said Luca Cari, a fire service spokesman, adding they had saved young boy from the wreckage.
"The rescue is complicated because this happened in the middle of the countryside," Mr Cari said.
There was no immediate reason given for the collision, which took place at around 11.30am local time.
"We won't stop until we get a clear explanation over what happened," Prime Minister Matteo Renzi told reporters, cutting short a visit to Milan in northern Italy.
A photograph handed to reporters by the fire brigade showed just four carriages left standing upright on the rails. A fifth carriage had jumped off the tracks, while the other three units appeared pulverised.
"It looks like there has been a plane crash," said the mayor of Corato, Massimo Mazzilli.
The stretch of track is operated by a regional rail company Ferrotramviaria. It was not clear how many people had been on the trains.
The last major rail disaster in Italy was in 2009 when a freight train derailed in Viareggio, in the centre of the country, with more than 30 people living close to the tracks killed in the subsequent fire.
[rte.ie]
12/7/16
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Collision mortelle entre deux trains dans le sud de l'Italie...
ReplyDeleteAu moins vingt personnes ont été tuées et plusieurs dizaines d'autres blessées dans la collision de deux trains dans le sud de l'Italie, dans la région des Pouilles.
Deux trains sont entrés en collision dans le sud de l'Italie. Au moins vingt personnes ont trouvé la mort et des dizaines d'autres ont été blessées dans cet accident ferroviaire survenu dans la région des Pouilles, entre les villes de Corato et Andria. "Malheureusement, le bilan est passé à vingt morts", a déclaré Giuseppe Corrado, le vice-président de la province Barletta – Andria – Trani (BAT).
L'accident s'est produit lors d'une collision frontale entre deux convois composés de quatre voitures chacun, qui se trouvaient sur la même ligne ferroviaire locale, selon des images diffusées sur les télévisions.
La protection civile locale, interrogée par l'AFP, a parlé d'informations partielles et s'est refusée de donner un bilan. Des dizaines de véhicules de secours, des ambulances, des forces de l'ordre et des pompiers, sont arrivés sur les lieux de l'accident, selon des images diffusées par les télévisions.....france24.com