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MELBOURNE - A 32-year-old New Zealand man is among those who died in yesterday's train crash in Australia.
Victoria Police said the man, from Wellington, was among 11 passengers killed when the V/Line train travelling from Swan Hill to Melbourne collided with a semi-trailer at a level crossing
on the Murray Valley Highway, six kilometres north of Kerang.
None of the victims have so far been named.
A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirmed a New Zealander had been killed.
She said the ministry was working with Victoria police and New Zealand officials posted in Australia to offer consular support to the man's family.
Assistant police commissioner Noel Ashby earlier said it would take some time for police to thoroughly examine the train wreck and recover any remaining bodies.
Five of the 23 people injured in the smash are critical and police fear the death toll of 11 may rise but are unsure whether three people who remain unaccounted for actually boarded the train.
This afternoon, police lowered the toll to 10 but then put it back up after Disaster Victim Identification Squad members finished removing the remains of victims from the wreckage.
Mr Ashby urged family and friends of the victims to be patient in their search for answers.
"We hope to get information out as quickly as we can but we also ask the public to understand that this will take us some time," he said.
National repercussions
The horrific smash will have national repercussions, Ashby says.
Mr Ashby said investigators would reconstruct the crash scene at the level crossing on the Murray Valley Highway near Kerang, where a truck smashed into a passenger train travelling from Swan Hill to Melbourne yesterday.
"Before we come out with anything definitive or anything even speculative we would really like to make sure our facts are solid," Mr Ashby told the Nine Network.
"The immensity of this investigation will be considerable and will have national repercussions."
He said level crossing accidents had been an issue around Australia.
"Here we see an ordinary place where ordinary people are going about their business in country Victoria and suddenly they are dead, and in large numbers," he said.
"That tragedy bites with people and resonates, and it is very very difficult to deal with in many circumstances."
Victorian Premier Steve Bracks said the investigation into the crash needed to make sure that lessons could be learned from the accident.
"We need to fully investigate what happened here to make sure that any lessons learnt are not just for Victoria, but for any (level) crossing around the country," Mr Bracks told the Nine Network.
He said it appeared nothing could have stopped the truck smashing into the train.
"We don't know whether a truck careering into a train would have been stopped by anything at all," Mr Bracks said.
"Clearly it veered off and didn't quite go through the crossing itself, in order to try to avoid the crash in the end."
Search resumes
The search will resume today for three people who remain unaccounted for.
A truck smashed into a passenger train travelling from Swan Hill to Melbourne at a level crossing on the Murray Valley Highway near Kerang, 280km northwest of Melbourne, yesterday, ripping open two carriages.
Twenty-three people were injured in the crash - five critically and seven with moderate injuries - but police fear the death toll may yet rise, with three others missing.
It is unclear if the three had boarded the train, police said.
Emergency crews will today resume picking through the wreckage to determine if the three were on the train.
Bells and lights were operating but there were no boom gates on the crossing, now the scene of one of Victoria's worst railway accidents.
Fighting back tears after visiting the crash site, Victorian Premier Steve Bracks said the Kerang disaster was Victoria's worst such accident in his time in office.
"This is a tragic situation, this is one of the worst rail accidents and collisions in Victoria's history," he told reporters.
"This is a tragedy which is going to obviously reverberate around Victoria for some time to come.
Mr Bracks promised a "full and thorough investigation" into the crash.
Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Noel Ashby said he expected the investigation would take weeks, if not months.
It would rely on witness statements and a scientific reconstruction of the crash showing the behaviour of the train and the truck before and after the accident, he said.
"It will be comprehensive, it will be searching and we will find out what happened," he said.
Crying and moaning
A woman who survived the crash that could hear other passengers screaming, crying and moaning.
"People were sitting in seats with glass all over them, people were screaming and crying and moaning," passenger Sue Fyffe, who was in the first carriage, told Sky TV.
"It was awful. It was devastating. I've never seen anything like this in my life and never ever want to again."
People with serious head, abdominal and chest injuries were taken by light aircraft, helicopters and a fleet of ambulances to hospitals in Melbourne, Bendigo, Mildura and Kerang.
Details of the accident were still sketchy last night, but it appears a truck-and-trailer unit went out of control as it neared a level crossing, striking a power pole and smashing into the second of three carriages.
The impact crushed much of the carriage and severed its connection with the third, which ended up about 150m behind the rest of the train.
Ms Fyffe said she and other passengers helped the injured.
"People were sitting in seats with glass all over them, screaming, crying and moaning.
"It was just shocking ... Glass was everywhere. I helped some of the elderly who had lots of cuts; some of them had broken bones."
Ms Fyffe said the carriage behind hers caught the worst of the impact.
"The truck just didn't stop. I don't know whether he didn't see the train until the last minute, but he tried to divert and hit the carriage behind me and we just felt it.
"It just felt as if the whole train was going to derail.
"You could see smoke, you could see the dirt from the truck where he had tried to stop.
"In the initial shock everyone was screaming because they thought the train was going to go over.
"The carriage that was behind mine is virtually half-demolished; half of the carriage is all mangled, pushed in."
Another witness said the smash appeared to have torn the train in two.
"It looks like a toy train set that was torn apart."
In the past two years, 29 people have died in rail accidents in Victoria.
There have been nine collisions with road vehicles and 53 incidents at level crossings.
Yesterday's crash happened about 6km from Kerang at 1.40pm, as the V-Line train crossed the Murray River Highway on the service from Swann Hill to Melbourne.
The train left Swann Hill at 1pm and was due at Melbourne's Southern Cross Station just after 5pm.
As the line nears Kerang, it crosses the highway at a level crossing controlled by flashing lights and alarms, but not boom gates.
The road is flat and straight, and last night there was speculation the truck driver - among those seriously hurt - may have been blinded by a low, bright sun.
Police Acting Inspector Steve Gibson said wet conditions were hampering rescuers, and their work would be a long operation.
"We've got all emergency services on site and working in a co-ordinated effort to get everyone to safety."
Premier Bracks said support would be offered to the victims.
"Certainly my heart goes out to the families and friends of those people who are commuting and travelling - innocent people on a train, just going about their business, who must have been through a horrific experience."
V-Line spokeswoman Ursula McGinness said the level crossing's lights and bells were believed to have been working at the time, "but a lot of that will come out in an investigation".
She said the train driver and engineer had survived the crash.
- with AAP
