VIENNA (Reuters) - Relatives of 155 people killed when an Austrian Alps funicular train caught fire in a tunnel in 2000 will share a 13.9-million-euro (11 million pound) settlement, the compensation commission said on Tuesday.
The restitution benefiting 451 claimants in Austria andabroad concluded years of legal squabbling following what wasthe Alpine republic's worst disaster in peacetime.
Klaus Liebscher, governor of Austria's central bank andchairman of the commission, said the deal was agreed "withoutreservations" by all claimants on June 12 and the money wouldbe paid out promptly.
Victims were mainly Austrians and Germans but also from theUnited States, the Netherlands, Britain, Slovenia and Japan.
The November 11, 2000 fire, traced to a malfunctioningheater, engulfed a train filled with skiers and snowboarders asit was passing through a tunnel en route to the Kitzsteinhornglacier near the ski resort of Kaprun. Twelve people survived.
In a statement, Liebscher, said the accord stipulates thatrelatives of the victims drop any separate, pending litigationseeking compensation.
He told reporters 23 of 28 claimants from Japan had sent afax earlier this week declaring they would withdraw from theagreement. But he said the accord was legally binding and theJapanese relatives would have no other recourse.
Representatives of victims had sought higher reparations inclass-action lawsuits lodged in Austria and the United States.
Sixteen people, including employees of the cable caroperator and the vehicle's maker, were charged with criminalnegligence over the catastrophe but all were acquitted in 2004.Eight were retried on appeal, and again acquitted.
(Reporting by Mark Heinrich; Editing by Janet Lawrence)