BB FANS

Reuters
Mon Dec 26, 2005 9:16 PM GMT

HELSINKI (Reuters) - A train hit a dog sleigh in northern Finland on Monday, killing two Italian teenagers, a Lapland rescue official said.

The two, a 14-year-old boy and an 18-year-old girl, were killed instantly when the train hit their sleigh at a level crossing about 40 km (25 miles) from the Arctic Circle, regional fire chief Harri Paldanius told Reuters.

The two were part of a group of 18 Italian tourists on a dog sleigh safari in Korpikyla, about 780 km (485 miles) north of the capital Helsinki. None of the others was hurt.

"We don't have any exact information about the cause. The train was coming from the north, but the investigation is still trying to find out what happened," Paldanius said.

That was terrible news!


I wait for more news about the accident - but the company hasn't given yet any security-documents to the authorities. Finland has a law about security of the products and that security-document has to be found in every company! They don't know yet why they didn't see or didn't know that the train was coming and why they didn't do anything about it!

I have been used to that the first and the last one in that kind of group should be the guide!

More news today:

Dog team is very hard to stop for a beginner, eventhought they were having instructions in English before going sleighing and sleigh had breaks. And there were Snow Mobile last in line! Train wasn't one with regular scheduals - it was an extra train that was on the move between Christmas eve and 6th of January. But the company owners should have been confirmed it from the time-tables, because the knowledge was there available. Nine Dog Sledges is a quite long line! Locomotive engineer saw them on the move on the crossing, tried to warn them with horns and tried to break the train (train doesn't stop in a seconds). Train hit the last sledge and children aged 14 and 17 (their parents were in the same Dog Sledge line as well), but dog team of that sledge survived.

It must have been very horrible and schocking!

Thanks for the update Mari, it was a dreadfull accident and some of my friends are Husky lovers so they were shocked with the news.

UPDATE: Police investigates dog sledge crash in northern Finland
28.12.2005 at 16:43

The Tornio police department is investigating whether the Monday dog sledge crash that killed two teenage Italian tourists was manslaughter or not.

"We are finding out if there is anybody who could be guilty of manslaughter," said Inspector Lasse Vaaraniemi of the Tornio police said Wednesday.

He said the starting point for the investigation was why nobody monitored the dog sledge caravan while it crossed the railway tracks and whether proper monitoring could have prevented the accident.

The Tornio police interrogated Tuesday night the tour operator who had organised the dog sledge safari. The interrogation corroborated suspicions that nobody was on the lookout. Police heard the family of the crash victims on Wednesday.

"Yes, we do suspect a crime has been committed, and have we have reported it. Two people are dead and we are investigating whether somebody has committed a crime that caused these two deaths," Inspector Vaaraniemi added.

The Finnish criminal code gives punitive fines or incarceration for a maximum of two years for manslaughter. Aggravated manslaughter brings incarceration for at least four months and six years at the most.

The tour operator that organised the tragic dog sledge safari does not want to comment the incident until the police has completed its investigation.

"We are all terribly shocked and sad that two young people have died. It is a terrible loss," says an employee of the company.

VirtualFinland

There might be a war over the subject pretty soon over here!

That poor girl who died in an accident was supposed to meet her father (an Italian mafioso, but he's at the prison at the moment) first time in her life, after she'd return back to Italy from Finland. And now there are a funeral instead of that.

It's still a terrible accident and a loss and nothing can change that or turn back the time. It shouldn't happen at all in the first place.

The locomotive engineer and snow mobile rider has said both that childrens dog team was stopped before the accident, but it's still a question that why did it started to move again.