Police said the bodies of two boys and a girl had been recovered from under the mountain of steel and concrete, all that remained of the roof of the rink in the town of Bad Reichenhall after it caved in under heavy snow on Monday.

Their discovery raised the death toll to 14, with rescuers continuing the search for one more missing woman.

Pope Benedict XVI, who was born in the state of Bavaria where the accident happened, sent a telegram to the archbishop of Munich on Wednesday to convey his condolences.

He said his thoughts were with relatives "after this tragic accident which cost the lives mostly of children," and wished the injured a speedy recovery.

Rudi Zeif, the fire chief in Bad Reichenhall, vowed that the search, with the help of sniffer dogs and cranes, would go on until the last of the missing had been recovered.

"We wanted to save people but we keep finding bodies. The worst is that so many are children," Zeif said.

Hubertus Andrae, the police chief of the nearby town of Traunstein, said a third body found on Wednesday was a girl, after the two boys had been pulled out earlier.

"We have found a 14th victim... this young girl. We have not found the woman yet, we are still looking," said the police chief, who earlier told reporters there was "no sign of life" from below the rubble.

Of those 14 found dead since the roof collapsed on skaters minutes before closing time on Monday, 12 were children or teenagers. Two of the victims were women aged around 40.

The town has also set up an Internet-based book of condolences, which has so far been signed by more than 2,300 people from across the country, and by people from as far afield as Australia, Portugal and the United States.

According to local radio, a memorial service would be held Tuesday.

Thirty-four people were also hurt when the roof collapsed. Thirteen of them were still in hospital but their lives were not in danger, German radio said.

It was not immediately clear what caused the flat roof of the building to cave in, in a region where heavy snowfall is commonplace.

Der Tagesspiegel newspaper on Wednesday cited meteorologists as saying there must have been about 180 tonnes of snow on the roof when it gave way.

State prosecutor Helmut Vordermayer has said evidence was being collected and a probe into the accident had been opened.

The events leading up to the collapse of the roof remained unclear on Wednesday.

The coach of a local ice hockey club, Thomas Rumpeltes, has said he was told the snow was to have been cleared from the roof shortly before it caved in.

Rumpeltes said he had cancelled a practice at the rink for a youth team because the authorities had told him of the impending clearance shortly before the accident.

He said no one had warned of any risk of the roof being unstable and that the snow removal was only a precautionary measure.

The town's mayor Wolfgang Heitmeier has rejected accusations of negligence for allowing the rink to remain open, saying the roof had been examined hours before it collapsed and the amount of snow on it was within safety limits.

He rejected speculation that the authorities knew of structural problems, saying he "could not explain" what caused the collapse.

Bavaria's regional interior ministry on Wednesday rejected calls for safety certificates for buildings, saying the cause of the accident needed to be determined before measures could be taken.

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