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Istanbul – Twenty-four people were killed in the derailment of a pbadenger train in northwestern Turkey, according to a new report announced Monday, the deadliest accident in the country's railways since 2004.
The 362-pbadenger train from Kapikule in the Tekirdag region on the Bulgarian border traveled to Istanbul when six of its cars derailed near the village of Sarilar.
Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Recep Akdag announced early Monday that 24 people had died in the crash and dozens more were injured. An initial badessment Sunday reported ten deaths.
Health Minister Ahmet Demircan, quoted by Turkish media, said 318 wounded were taken to hospital after the accident, 124 remaining hospitalized Monday morning.
Search and rescue operations were completed Monday morning, according to Akdag.
The Ministry of Transport said in a statement that the ground had ducked under the rails because of recent heavy rains, causing the derailment.
The television pictures showed several cars lying on their sides and victims evacuated on stretchers. The rough train seemed to be traveling on one of the old single-track railway lines.
Transport Minister Ahmet Arslan said the rails were checked in April.
More than 100 ambulances were dispatched to the scene Sunday, according to a Ministry of Health official, Eyup Gumus, speaking on public TV TRT Haber.
– Fatal Accidents –
The Turkish Army, for its part, said in a statement that it had sent several helicopters to the accident site.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who begins Monday a new five-year term with expanded powers, expressed his condolences to the victims and announced that an investigation would be conducted on " this tragic accident ] ".
In recent years, Turkey has embarked on modernizing its rail network, building several high-speed lines to bring pbadengers who prefer air or bus to rail.
In July 2014, it inaugurated its first high-speed train between its two main cities, the capital Ankara and Istanbul, a project implemented by Erdogan as part of his efforts to modernize his country.
This line reduced the duration of the trip between these two cities to three and a half hours against more than seven hours before.
Several fatal accidents have occurred on the Turkish rail network in recent years.
The deadliest occurred in July 2004, leaving 41 dead and 80 injured in the derailment of a high-speed train in Sakarya province in the north-west of the country.
In January 2008, nine people died in a derailment caused by faulty rails in the Kutaha region, south of Istanbul.
Turkey acquired a railway network in the mid-nineteenth century under the Ottoman Empire, and the construction of the tracks was carried out by the great powers of the time, Great Britain, France and Germany.
Legend has it that foreign companies were paid per kilometer, which would explain the tortuous routes taken by the Turkish railways.
The development of the network was continued by the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, but his talk was subsequently neglected when the country's economic situation deteriorated.
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