Death toll from tunnel fire may rise to 12

The death toll from the Swiss tunnel fire may rise to 12 after bones were found in a burned truck.

Emilio Scossa-Biaggi, chief of forensic services for the Ticino cantonal police, said the death toll officially remains 11. "But I cannot exclude that there is a 12th victim."

Besides the bones, 10 bodies have been recovered from the Gotthard Tunnel, nine of which have been identified, Scossa-Biaggi said. The 10th body remains unidentified because the face is burned beyond recognition, he added.

Scossa-Biaggi said the exact death toll hinges on what happened to one of the truck drivers in the head-on collision that started the fire last Wednesday.

One of the drivers reached safety, but the other has been missing ever since the accident.

The missing driver identified by Belgian authorities as Turkish citizen Sefy Aslan Ufacik, 46. He was driving a Belgian-registered truck carrying insulation.

They assumed that he had been trapped in his truck, pinned between a second truck and the tunnel wall. Salvage workers said could find no sign of him when they checked the truck.

Police said experts would have to examine the truck for DNA traces, but poisons in the tunnel air have so far prevented that.

The list of missing people who relatives and associates say may have been in the tunnel area has dropped to 16.

Scossa-Biaggi said the bones or the unidentified body may have been one of the people on the list, an Ecuadorean truck driver whose identity has been withheld. It was also was possible the unidentified body is that of the missing Turkish driver.

Ticino District Attorney Antonio Perugini said he couldn't rule out that the Turkish driver escaped and fled.

Witnesses have said the collision occurred when Ufacik's northbound truck lost control and swerved in front of a southbound truck carrying tires.