Anguish: Relatives, many of whom heard the news on TV, gathered at a makeshift funeral parlour set up at a local school within hours of the crash

Distraught: A crying man is comforted by a police officer (left), while two women hug each other as they visit the temporary funeral parlour at a nearby school

Too much to bear: Many relatives of the victims only found out about the tragedy when it was reported on TV

Horrific: Rescuers place bodies into coffins as they recover victims who died when a bus plunged off a motorway into a ravine near Avellino in southern Italy

Another man told how he had lost four members of his family.

Pozzuoli, with a population of 80,000, has declared three days of public mourning.

One of the first firefighters to arrive described horrific scenes of children screaming and their desperate parents calling out to them in the dark amid a mass of crumpled metal and bodies.

Emilio Matarazzo said: 'I heard children weeping and crying out inside the carcass of the coach . That was what made my blood run cold.'



Rescuers wielding electric saws cut through the twisted metal looking for survivors inside the mangled bus, stopping occasionally in silence to listen for any cries for help, even as the bodies were put into coffins.



Ten people were seriously wounded, including six children.



Relatives, many of whom heard the news on TV, gathered at a makeshift funeral parlour set up at a local school within hours of the crash.

Mario Terracciano, who lost his mother Barbara, her father and his uncle and aunt, all from Pozzuoli, said: ‘I heard that they came from Telese Terme, I knew right away that it was them.



'I had spoken to my mother only a few hours before. She had been worried about my lunch. My uncle and aunt were simple people who just wanted a few hours of serenity.’