BOLOGNINA DI CREVALCORE, Italy (AP) – A passenger train and a freight train collided head-on in heavy fog in northern Italy on Friday, killing at least 13 people, injuring dozens and crushing several cars into a wreck of buckled metal.

The force of the crash, on a line between Bologna and Verona, lifted one train car vertically into the air until it was nearly perpendicular to the tracks. Rescue workers struggled to keep their balance as they scaled the car with ladders. Another passenger car was ripped nearly in half.

“From the car in front of ours, which was completely destroyed, we heard people screaming for help,” passenger Steve Djaumen from Cameroon told the Italian news agency ANSA. Djaumen said he and others were able to push open a door and climb out.

Near the wreckage, bodies were lined up in a misty, muddy field in white body bags.

Officials originally put the death toll at 14, then lowered it, saying confusion arose because of difficulty identifying bodies. Several seriously injured people were taken to nearby hospitals, and about 50 people were treated at the scene for minor injuries, ANSA said.

Those killed included three train drivers and one other staff member, Italy’s Trenitalia rail network said.

The trains collided at 12:50 p.m. in a rural area of Bolognina di Crevalcore, 25 miles north of Bologna.

One passenger said that before impact, the train seemed to be traveling at normal speed and he did not feel the brakes kick in.

The weather and rough countryside complicated rescuers’ early efforts to reach the site, one rescue official said.

“Unfortunately, as you can see, the terrain offers scarce mobility for ambulances,” fire chief Mario Morcone told reporters. “The fog didn’t make it easy to get here.”

Rescuers lifted several injured passengers out of the train on stretchers and loaded them into ambulances.

Officials planned to work into the night, cutting pieces from the wreckage under floodlights and lifting them away with a crane.

The Civil Defense department said around 100 people were on board the passenger train, which was a local train traveling south from Verona to Bologna. The freighter was headed north from Rome to San Zeno Falzano.

French President Jacques Chirac offered his condolences in a letter to Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi.

The Transport Ministry said it was opening an investigation into the cause.

According to ANSA, investigators were studying the possibility that one train failed to stop at a red light and wait for the other train to pass on a second track.

A prosecutor in the Bologna office heading the investigation declined to comment on the report.

“Tomorrow we will begin to get more details,” prosecutor Luigi Persico said, adding that an expert was heading to the scene.

Most train accidents in Italy are minor, but a train from Palermo to Messina derailed in northeastern Sicily in July 2002, killing at least eight people.

Associated Press writer Marta Falconi in Rome contributed to this report.

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