With northern communities still in shock over the tragic railtrack deaths of two schoolgirls last week, police are still piecing together evidence in a bid to pinpoint which train it was that killed them so violently, without anyone on board noticing.
The bodies of Lígia Louro, 13, and Inês Rosa, 14, were only discovered on Friday.
As far as investigations can tell, they will have been there since early evening last Wednesday shortly after Inês spoke to her mother on her mobile phone, assuring her that she and Lígia were almost home.
According to reports, the mother “did not believe” Inês and went out looking for her.
As the story slowly came together, it appeared the girls had travelled to Coimbra by train, to meet an older male friend, aged 18.
It is a trip the two kept secret, and one which people who knew them say they cannot understand as neither girl had travelled so far on their own before.
In fact, Inês’ aunt was interviewed on television, saying she wondered whether the story was even true.
Thus the need now for police to troll CCTV images, to try and understand what happened.
Reports suggest the girls were hit by a train travelling at up to 190 km/ hour as they returned from Coimbra after dark.
The reason for their being on the line is still muddled. Correio da Manhã claims they got confused with the train and got out at the wrong stop. They will then have continued on foot along the tracks to Montemor-o-Novo, their hometown, “but got confused again, and ended up going in the direction of Vila Nova de Anços, on the Northern Line”.
“What happened at the moment of tragedy, no one knows for certain”, the paper stresses. All that is clear is that the girls “suffered multiple injuries”: one was “projected against a post”, the other “against a fence”.
CM suggests that the children may not have heard the train coming for “various reasons”, one of which involves “listening to music”, another because they “may have had their backs to the train”.
But there are still numerous question marks over the story. On Saturday, for example, CM floated the idea that the girls may not have been hit by a train at all but “projected by the dislocation of air” that resulted from carriages passing as they walked in the dark hoping to reach home.
