Derailed train in Taiwan: dozens of dead

At least 51 people were killed in Taiwan and 146 others were injured when a train with 480 people on board collided with a vehicle parked on the tracks and derailed in a tunnel, in the most serious train accident in the island for decades.

According to the Pacific Ocean Island Railways Agency, 146 passengers were hospitalized as a result of injuries sustained by the impact of the crash that killed 51 people.

Among those killed was a French national, while two Japanese and a Macau resident were injured, the Taiwan Railway Agency added.

Authorities said the collision was caused by a maintenance vehicle slipping on an embankment on the tracks near the eastern coastal town of Hualien, authorities said.

“It is suspected that (the driver) did not pull the handbrake sufficiently, so that the vehicle slipped 20 meters to the tracks,” the deputy director of the Authority for Taiwan Railways, Feng Hui-sheng.

Local media photos taken at the scene show the back of a yellow flatbed truck overturned near the train.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen visited an emergency center in the capital, Taipei, and said the causes of the incident would be investigated, noting:

“Of course, we will clarify the cause of the incident which claimed so many lives.”

“I hope that the deceased will rest in peace and that the injured will recover soon,” he added in statements to the press, AFP reported.

The accident happened around 9:30 am (01:30 GMT) on the Taiwan East Line.

Images released by local media outlet UDN show that the front section of the train inside the tunnel was destroyed.

The passengers in the back of the convoy were able to escape the accident unharmed.

“I felt like there had been a sudden violent shaking and I fell to the ground,” a woman told the TV station. “We broke the window to get on the roof of the train and get out,” he added.

This eight-car train, carrying around 480 passengers, was heading from Taipei to the town of Taitung in the southeast of the island.

Rescuers worked for hours to help passengers stuck in the tunnel and get them out, and dozens of rescuers remained at the scene.

The accident coincides with the start of the annual grave-cleaning holiday, a long holiday weekend that fills the country’s roads and railroads.

For these festivities, locals usually return to their home villages to clean the graves of their loved ones and make offerings.

The Eastern Taiwan Railway is often a tourist draw as it runs along its splendid and less populated east coast and, through multiple tunnels and bridges, winds through spectacular mountains and gorges before descending into the valley of Huadong.

The accident is one of the worst rail disasters in Taiwan, where the last major derailment was recorded in 2018, when 18 people were killed at the southern end of the same line.

The driver of the eight-car train was subsequently charged with negligent homicide and more than 200 of the 366 passengers were injured.

This accident was the worst since 1991, when 30 passengers were killed and 112 injured in the collision of two trains in Miaoli.

The Apple Daily newspaper reported that the worst accident on the island took place in 1948 and left 64 people dead.