The final death toll of the train fire from February 29 2008 has reached nine people, a forensics team said on March 4, as quoted by Dnevnik daily.

Six bodies had been identified over the weekend and the team has confirmed the identities of the last two, doctor Dancho Dekov said, as quoted by the newspaper. The team also found remains of another person, who was until then presumed missing, he added.

Bulgaria's cabinet declared March 5 a day of nationwide mourning for the victims of the fire, which was the deadliest train-related incident in Bulgaria since 1992, according to Bulgarian State Railways (BDZ), the Cabinet decided during an extraordinary session.

Initial reports on the morning of February 29 claimed that at least three people died, with four spending the night in hospital with carbon monoxide poisoning. The death toll later rose to eight people, with forensics experts needing extensive investigations to identify some of the bodies.

Among the victims of the fire was the Rasho Rashev, the director of Bulgaria's National Archaeological Institute.

The train was travelling from Sofia to Kardam on the border with Romania, in Dobrich region. The fire started in a couchette carriage, which had 35 people in it at the time, and then spread to a sleeping coach with 27 people, according to Focus news agency. It broke out as the train was entering the town of Cherven bryag, around midnight, and took more than three hours to extinguish.

Prosecutors from Pleven investigated the scene during the day, with the two most likely explanations being either a light bulb explosion, which ignited a curtain and then the fire spread further, or someone putting a curtain on fire intentionally, according to Interior Ministry investigators, quoted by Dnevnik daily on February 29.

But on March 4, BDZ's Kiril Angelov, who heads the company's safety department, told private channel bTV that it was unlikely that a light bulb explosion was the cause, adding that it was more likely to have been the contents of someone's luggage.