Death toll in Italian liquid gas train explosion rises to 10

Rome: A rail freight car filled with liquefied gas has exploded after a train derailed in the middle of a small Italian town, killing at least 10 people and injured 50 others.

Officials says the rear of the train plowed into a residential neighbourhood just outside the station in the Tuscan seaside town of Viareggio.

Raffaele Gargiulo, a police spokesman in neighbouring Lucca, said Tuesday that seven people, including a child, were killed in their homes.

He said two drivers who were on the road alongside the railway when the train derailed also died. An injured man died in hospital.

Lucca's top government official, Carmelo Aronica, told RAI state TV that at least 50 people were injured, 35 of them hospitalised with severe burns. The ANSA news agency reports that three children were pulled alive from the rubble.