Nine people were killed and twenty-eight injured when regional train R108 was engulfed by a mudslide near the winter sports town of Merano [Bolzano] on Monday.

The train was hit by an avalanche of mud, rocks and debris just after 9 am as it reached a point where the tracks cross a narrow gorge on the Castelbello – Laces line, one of the most modern in Italy. Moments earlier a train travelling in the opposite direction had passed it.

All the dead have been identified and all were local. Among them are an eighteen-year-old girl and a 32-year-old mother who was on her way to see her prematurely born baby in hospital, reports Corriere della Sera.

The train’s twenty-five-year-old driver was also killed. He leaves a widow and two children. Two of the injured are in a serious condition in hospital. Had the mudslide happened an hour earlier, observed a local firefighter, it would have hit a train full of schoolchildren.

Only the fact that the track is bordered by trees stopped the train from plunging into the Adige river and rescuers had to secure it with cables. They then searched for survivors in the mud throughout Monday.

It is thought that the mudslide was caused by a burst irrigation pipe in an orchard above the railway line. An investigation is under way and flags will fly at half-mast throughout the Trentino-Alto Adige region today.