Few names released as the grim process of identification goes on

Skiing stars, American servicemen on leave, Japanese tourists, a group of Austrian civil servants and many ordinary day-trippers are among the victims of the world's worst funicular railway disaster, investigators in Kaprun confirmed yesterday.

Skiing stars, American servicemen on leave, Japanese tourists, a group of Austrian civil servants and many ordinary day-trippers are among the victims of the world's worst funicular railway disaster, investigators in Kaprun confirmed yesterday.

There was still no official confirmation that British people were among the dead last night as Austrian rescue workers began to remove the charred remains of an estimated 155 people who perished on Saturday in the country's worst civil disaster.

With the twisted hulk of the carriage dangling on a cable and the tunnel's walls emitting poisonous fumes, 80 firefighters in survival suits were hauling the bodies to the skiing station of Kitzsteinhorn. "The victims are beside, in and underneath the train," Franz Schausberger, the regional governor, said. They are to be flown today to a Salzburg clinic where forensic scientists will try to name the victims.

Rescue workers and the police identified many of the victims of Saturday's tragedy "with 90 per cent certainty". They said 52 of the victims were Austrians, 42 German, 10 Japanese, two Slovenes and one Croat. But a further 40 are of uncertain nationality. Few of the names have been made public, because in many cases officials are still trying to contact relatives. But 33 of the Austrians came from the town of Wells and knew each other. They were all civil servants working at the town hall.

The small village of Kaprun has closed a protective circle around the victims and their relations. Everyone knows somebody who failed to return from Saturday's skiing trip, but neither the officials nor the locals will say who they are. Their tragic fate, nevertheless, is the talk of the community. At Pension Hauserhof, for instance, a room has fallen vacant, but is not available. A family from Upper Austria rented three rooms for six people. Mother, father and daughter-in-law were spending yesterday at the youth hostel, which has been converted into a counselling centre. They lost two children and their uncle.

And Germany was mourning 19-year old Sandra Schmitt, world free-style skiing champion of 1999, as well as four budding champions, some as young as 10. "They were four of our most talented skiing hopes," the German Skiing Association said of the three boys and one girl.

Anton Steiner, a Kaprun policeman, was among the first to reach the lower end of the tunnel on Saturday morning. "We peered through the darkness and saw bodies lying everywhere," he recalled yesterday.

The view was no better at the railway's summit station. Six people in that station escaped, but three others choked in the cloud of smoke a few steps from safety. Rescue workers say the victims are so badly burnt that in many cases only DNA analysis will establish for certain who they were.

As the region of Salzburg marks two days of mourning and Masses are held in memory of the victims all over Austria, the government has promised a thorough investigation.

British consular staff arrived yesterday at the scene of the disaster. No British tour operators had reported holidaymakers failing to return from a day's skiing, a spokesman said. On Saturday Downing Street said it was believed there were Britons among those who perished.