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YILAN, Taiwan (Reuters) – The driver of a train in Taiwan that crashed, killing 18 people, said Tuesday in a court that he had disabled his speed control system, said a judicial officer, while investigators have reconstructed the events that led to the worst of the railway accident island for decades.
Rescuers are working on the site where a train derailed in Yilan County, Taiwan, on October 22, 2018. REUTERS / Stringer
The train came off the rails Sunday in a bend as it was moving at nearly 140 km / h, nearly double the maximum speed of 46 mph (74 km / h), in the north – is mountainous on the island, at the head of a government investigation team. I said.
Chief investigator Wu Ze-cheng told Reuters that there was no way to know if the speed control system, called automatic train protection, had been turned off by himself or on his own. had been manually disabled before the accident, which also injured 187 people.
A spokesman for Taiwan's Yilan District Court told Reuters the driver said at his bail hearing that he had turned the system off himself to give the train more power. that it had slowed down.
"He should have reactivated the system at the next stage," said court spokesman Huang Yong-sheng.
"The accused is strongly suspected of being careless."
Reuters could not reach the train driver, You Zhen-zhong, 48, to get his comment. He received a bail of T $ 500,000 ($ 16,167) and was banned from leaving Taiwan after being detained for the purpose of the investigation.
You were treated at the hospital after the accident.
Your advocate, Kou Tua-jai, said that the driver knew he had to reactivate the protection system, but he had not done so because he was communicating with him. 39, other coordinators because of a separate problem related to the speed of the train.
"He admitted that he was responsible for the breach of duty, but he would like to raise a point: there was something wrong with the train," Kou told Reuters.
Kou said the driver stated that the speed indicated on the train's indicator was not his actual speed.
Chief investigator Wu said that further investigation was needed to determine why the driver had failed to reactivate the protection system.
He clarified that it was not immediately clear whether the speed indicated on the train indicator was different from its actual speed.
GRAPHIC: Deadly train accident in Taiwan – tmsnrt.rs/2NZiXQi
The disaster was the deadliest train accident in Taiwan since the 1981 crash that claimed the lives of 30 people.
The head of the state railway administration, Lu Jie-shen, has proposed to resign, but the Minister of Transport has not accepted this proposal, said the l & # 39; authority of the railways.
Prime Minister William Lai apologized for the accident on behalf of the government.
"People were waiting for the railroad to be the safest," Lai told Parliament.
"I apologize to the people on behalf of the Executive Yuan," he said, referring to the island cabinet.
Train derailments are not uncommon on the island, characterized by rugged and mountainous terrain, but fatal accidents are rare.
Report by Yimou Lee; Edited by Robert Birsel
