WARSAW, Poland — Explorers in Poland began digging Tuesday for a legendary Nazi train said to be laden with treasure and armaments.

They’re not dissuaded by decades of fruitless searches, a scientific determination that no train is there and warnings by historians that such a train might not even exist.

The search in southwestern Poland attests to the power of a local legend claiming a Nazi “gold train” disappeared in a mountain tunnel as the Germans escaped the advancing Soviet army at the end of World War II.

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As the dig got underway, a yellow excavator moved earth along railroad tracks above the spot where two explorers —Andreas Richter, a German, and Piotr Koper, a Pole — believe the train is buried. Richter and Koper, joined by several other volunteers, expect the search to last several days.

The two men claimed last year to have located the elusive train with radar equipment deep in the bowels of the earth in the city of Walbrzych, sparking a gold rush to the castle city and the surrounding area.

A government official initially said he was “99 percent sure” the train was there, helping to feed the frenzy. The arrival of treasure hunters and curiosity seekers from across Europe gave a welcome financial boost to the coal mining region of Silesia, which has struggled since unprofitable mines in the area were closed after the fall of communism.

Late last year, geological experts from a university in Krakow, using magnetic equipment, found no train on the spot.

But the explorers refused to give up.

Andrzej Gaik, a spokesman for the search team, said six independent companies using various radar devices have detected anomalies indicating the shape of a tunnel underground on an elevated area running along railroad tracks.

“The results of the ground-penetrating radar examinations are very promising,” Gaik said. “It’s so exciting and we count on success.”

Historians say the existence of the train, which is said to have gone missing in May 1945, never has been conclusively proven. Polish authorities nonetheless have seemed eager to pursue any chance of recovering treasures that have sparked the imaginations of local people for decades.

At the height of the frenzy last year, the World Jewish Congress reminded Poland’s authorities that, in the case of a discovery of a treasure-laden train, any valuables belonging to Jews killed in the Holocaust must be returned to their rightful owners or their heirs.

Legend holds the train was armed and loaded with treasure and disappeared after entering a complex of tunnels under the Owl Mountains, a secret project known as “Riese” — or Giant — which the Nazis never finished.

The area belonged to Germany at the time, but has been part of Poland since the borders were moved in the postwar settlement.

A man credited with being the main living source of the legend is a retired miner, Tadeusz Slowikowski. He heard from a German man in the 1970s of a train that left the German city of Breslau (today Poland’s Wroclaw) in the spring of 1945, as the Soviet army approached. He said the man told him the train disappeared before ever making it to Waldenburg (now Walbrzych) some 65 kilometers (45 miles) to the west.

However, a local historian, Pawel Rodziewicz, told The Associated Press last year that documentation leaves no doubt that gold in Breslau was evacuated to the German central bank in Berlin and elsewhere, so there would have been no reason to take any to Waldenburg, where the approaching Soviets could find it.

He thinks it is impossible that a secret railway tunnel could have been built into the hill near railroad tracks in frequent use. No documents have ever been found to indicate such a project was undertaken, while documents exist even for the most top-secret projects of the Third Reich, including some for the subterranean tunnels beneath the Ksiaz Castle in Walbrzych, Rodziewicz argued.

Story: Vanessa Gera

KATHMANDU, Nepal — A bus filled with people traveling to their home villages in Nepal to receive the first government payments for victims of last year’s devastating earthquake slipped off a narrow mountain road Monday, killing at least 33 people and injuring 28 others.

The bus was heading to Kartike Deurali village, among the worst hit by the quake, which killed nearly 9,000 people in the country. The road — little more than a trail — was only wide enough for one vehicle to pass at a time and was slippery because of continuous rain.

Home Ministry official Chiranjivi Nepal said 33 people were killed, but victims and relatives said many more may have died because the wreckage was scattered along the slope below the road and some areas were inaccessible.

“The bus stalled while climbing the hill and the driver tried to restart it, but the vehicle rolled backward and then slipped off the road,” passenger Kopila Gautam said from a bed at the National Trauma Center in Kathmandu.

Gautam said about 85 passengers were riding inside the bus and on its roof. It was also packed with bags of rice, lentils, flour and other supplies being taken to villages. Gautam was sitting on a sack of rice because there were no seats available.

She said she and other survivors struggled to climb back up to the road.

Pustak Guatam, a villager who reached the site about an hour after the accident to rescue his nephew, said bodies and wreckage were scattered over a large area.

“It appeared that the bodies were ejected as the bus rolled down the slope, so I am sure more bodies will be found,” Gautam said.

Mohan Giri, another villager who rushed to the hospital after hearing about the accident, said the bus was unusually crowded because many people were heading from Kathmandu to their villages to receive the first government grants for earthquake victims.

The accident occurred near Khare Khola, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) east of the capital. Officials said the bus plunged off the road and rolled about 150 meters (500 feet).

Army and police personnel were searching the area for bodies.

Nepal’s mountainous terrain, extreme weather and poorly maintained roads and vehicles often make for treacherous travel conditions. Many of the bus accidents in the country happen during the monsoon season, which begins in June and ends in September.

Story: Binaj Gurubacharya