KAPRUN, Austria - Relatives and friends who had waited through the night in this Alpine village began to get word Sunday on whether their loved ones were among the dead in a cable car fire that killed about 170 people in a mountain tunnel.
With the village hall draped in black and candles burning on shop steps, shattered townsfolk gathered in the Kaprun church for Sunday Mass. As they mourned, emergency crews tried to reach the spot where scores of people, many children and teen-agers, were killed Saturday by smoke and flames.
''We understand Christ's wail on the cross: 'My God, why have you forsaken me?''' priest Peter Hofer said in his sermon.
Others gave thanks after realizing their loved ones were safe.
''My son is, thank God, all right,'' said Gottfried Nindl. His boy had planned to go on the cable car with his friends, but didn't because they had slept too late, he said.
The car, pulled on rails underground for most of the 3,200 yards up the Kitzsteinhorn mountain to a glacier region, stopped, blazing, about 600 yards inside a mountain tunnel Saturday morning. The cause of the fire has not been determined.
Rescuers could not reach the victims as the fire raged on. Passengers tried to flee through the deep tunnel, but most were felled by the thick smoke and flames. Eighteen people survived, mainly by fleeing downwards in the tunnel where the smoke was thinner, authorities said.
It was still unclear how many people were in the cable car, but it was believed that it had a capacity of 180 people and was full.
The retrieval of the bodies was delayed by toxic fumes inside the tunnel and the need to secure the charred car. Chief firefighter Anton Brandauer said the tunnel was now almost smoke-free and that the retrieval of the bodies could begin.
But as night rolled in, other officials said the accident site remained too dangerous, suggesting recovery efforts could be delayed until Monday.
Once the remains of the victims are brought into town, authorities plan to set up a large tent in the town center where relatives and friends can say final farewells.
Authorities said Sunday they had identified 155 of the victims with near certainty. Among them were 52 Austrians, 42 Germans, 10 Japanese, eight Americans, two Slovenes and a Croat. Authorities had not yet established the nationalities of the remaining 40 people.
The victims were identified by eliminating those who had returned alive from a list of 2,500 people who had taken the cable car up the slope before the fire.
Three U.S. army personnel were confirmed among the dead. The Americans were part of a group of mostly military personnel from Wuerzburg, Germany, and their families, said Maj. Drew Stathis, a member of the group.
Stathis said missing Americans from the group included a family of four with two children, an engaged couple and a man and his son.
As evening fell, the village of 3,100 was unusually quiet, with little of the usual ski-season bustle. The few locals on the street were outnumbered by the hundreds of police and rescue officials.
Survivors described the horror of the tragedy.
Psychiatrist Thomas Kamolz, who talked to survivors, said they told him of someone inside the car breaking a window with his ski pole and a survivor who ''saw a father throwing out his child'' in order to save the baby.
Running on rails, the cable car enters the mountainside after being hoisted up a steep ramp over a valley, supported by metal struts. Erik Buxbaum, Austria's public security chief, said Saturday's fire may have started before the cable car disappeared into the mountainside.
''We have received information that the light of a fire was already visible to outside witnesses as the train was entering the tunnel,'' he said.
Buxbaum said that when the car operator noticed the blaze, it was already too late. Other officials later said it appeared the fire broke out at the rear end of the cable car.
Most of the victims apparently managed to escape the car but were killed by fumes while trying to run up narrow stairs leading out of the tunnel, said Manfred Mueller, the cable car's head technician. Those who survived apparently ran the opposite way, avoiding most of the smoke being blown upward through the tunnel by strong drafts.
Bodies of victims were found as far as 60 yards upward from the charred car, investigating officials said. Salzburg Gov. Franz Schausberger said the bodies were found ''next to, in and under the train.''
Authorities said fresh air sucked into the tunnel fed the flames. The 18 survivors apparently included 12 who escaped from the car and six who had been waiting at the top of the tunnel.
The Austrian government declared Saturday and Sunday national days of mourning.
The Austria Press Agency described the disaster as the worst of any involving skiers being transported by cable-pulled cars to skiing slopes. The disaster's toll surpassed the number killed the Italian ski resort of Cavalese in 1976, when 42 people died after a cable carrying suspended cable cars snapped.
The cable car caught fire while thousands of people were enjoying late fall sunshine and balmy temperatures on the glacier slopes on what was the opening day of the region's ski season.
Built in 1974, the cable railway was one of the first of its kind with a tunnel passing through a mountainside.
