Trial begins for 33 people charged in 2009 Italian train crash

The head of Italy's state railroad company is among 33 people whose trial began Wednesday in a gas-train explosion that killed 32 people in 2009, officials say. The June 2009 accident in the Tuscan town of Viareggio was blamed on the railway cutting back on safety measures, the Italian news agency ANSA reported. Those alleged cutbacks are claimed to have caused a freight train carrying liquid gas to derail and explode as it passed the city's train station. The explosion forced more than 1,000 people to evacuate their homes. The accident scene was declared a national disaster area for several months. Mauro Moretti, chief executive of the Ferrovie dello Stato railway, and the other defendants have been indicted on charges including manslaughter and responsibility for causing a rail disaster.