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Alps train fire families sue
Relatives of the 155 victims killed in a train
fire in the Austrian Alps in 2000 have launched civil suits
against the company that runs the funicular, court officials said
today.
The families, representing a 243 people, are claiming 9.5 million
euros from Gletscherbahn Kaprun AG in the hearings that are due
to open next month and in April, Salzburg court spokesman Hans Rathgeb
said. Prosecutors have already launched a probe into German manufacturer
Fakir of a heater which a judge said sparked the November 2000 blaze.
A court in Salzburg last Thursday acquitted 16 people implicated
in the deadly blaze that engulfed a funicular at the all-year ski
resort of Kaprun in central Austria. Prosecutors are appealing the
verdict, which shocked relatives of the victims and has sparked
much soul-searching here about the Austrian legal system. Among
the accused were train operators, technicians and public officials,
but Fakir was not charged.
Heater to blame?
In its verdict however, the court found a small air heater manufactured
by Fakir caused the inferno. Judge Manfred Seiss said he believed
the company was aware of problems with its products but never recalled
them. Gletscherbahnen Kaprun AG, and whose bosses were among those
blamed for the blaze, is suing Fakir for negligence and for lying
to the court.
The fire broke out while the furnicular was entering a tunnel at
the foot of the Kitzsteinhorn glacier where it was taking 161 skiers.
The blaze, the worst in Austria since World War II, killed 92 Austrians,
37 Germans, 10 Japanese, eight Americans, four Slovenians, two Dutch,
a Briton and a Czech. Only six people escaped.
[Source: Agence France-Presse]
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