Quebec brings in 9/11 expert to help sift through train crash debris LAC-MEGANTIC, Quebec (Reuters) - A U.S. expert who worked on the aftermath of the September 11 attacks is helping Canadian authorities sift through wreckage left more than a week after a runaway train barreled into a lakeside town in Quebec killing 50 people, police said on Wednesday. Frank DePaolo, an emergency specialist from New York's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, visited the ruins of Lac-Megantic earlier in the week. DePaolo is an expert in managing major disaster sites and is responsible for one of the forensic teams working at the collapsed World Trade Center towers in New York City. "He said the efforts were complex and difficult and he was overwhelmed (by) the enormity of the situation," Quebec police spokesman Michel Forget told reporters. A spokeswoman in DePaolo's New York office said he was not available for comment. Investigators are painstakingly working their way through Lac-Megantic, where a runaway crude oil train derailed and exploded on July 6 leaving burned-down buildings, mountains of rail-related debris and charred trees. Some 37 bodies have been recovered and investigators are still searching for more remains. It was North America's deadliest rail accident in more than 20 years. Canada's new transportation minister, Lisa Raitt, met local officials in Lac-Megantic on Wednesday and said the federal government was ready to help the community. She gave no details. Earlier on the day the railway company at the center of the disaster confirmed it had laid off a number of people in Maine and Quebec. The cutbacks at the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway (MMA) come 11 days after a runaway train hauling 72 tanker cars of crude oil derailed and exploded in the center of Lac-Megantic, leveling the heart of the small town. Reporting by Phil Wahba in Lac-Megantic and Julie Gordon in Toronto; Writing by David Ljunggren; Editing by Vicki Allen and Lisa Shumaker