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At least 54 people were killed and over a hundred injured after a packed express train derailed in a tunnel in eastern Taiwan on Friday morning, according to authorities, in the worst train crash on the island in at least 40 years.
Images from the scene showed carriages in the tunnel ripped apart by the impact, with others crumpled, hindering rescuers in their efforts to reach passengers, although by mid-afternoon no one was still trapped.
“People just fell all over each other, on top of one another,” a woman who survived the crash told domestic television. “It was terrifying. There were whole families there.”
The eight carriage train, on its way from Taipei to Taitung came off the tracks at 9:28 am (01:28 GMT) in a tunnel north of Hualien, according to the Taiwan Railways Administration. The service was so busy that some people were forced to stand and thrown through the air as it derailed.
At the site, Transport Minister Lin Chia-lung told reporters that it had been carrying about 490 people, higher than an earlier figure of 350 provided by fire authorities.
Read more here. (Aljazeera)
Images from the scene showed carriages in the tunnel ripped apart by the impact, with others crumpled, hindering rescuers in their efforts to reach passengers, although by mid-afternoon no one was still trapped.
“People just fell all over each other, on top of one another,” a woman who survived the crash told domestic television. “It was terrifying. There were whole families there.”
The eight carriage train, on its way from Taipei to Taitung came off the tracks at 9:28 am (01:28 GMT) in a tunnel north of Hualien, according to the Taiwan Railways Administration. The service was so busy that some people were forced to stand and thrown through the air as it derailed.
At the site, Transport Minister Lin Chia-lung told reporters that it had been carrying about 490 people, higher than an earlier figure of 350 provided by fire authorities.
Read more here. (Aljazeera)