HUALIEN/TAIPEI – At least 41 people are feared dead after a passenger train travelling down Taiwan’s east coast derailed on Friday (April 2) in what local authorities said was one of the country’s worst railway accidents in four decades.
Paramedics and firefighters are battling to extract survivors from the twisted wreckage of the 408 Taroko Express.
The eight-car train, which had 488 passengers on board, had crashed into an engineering vehicle that was not parked properly just after exiting a tunnel north of Hualien city, said the Taiwan Railways Administration.
The vehicle was on a slope just off the tunnel’s southbound exit, and had slipped off as the Taroko Express passed by. It crashed into the train and caused the second and third cars to derail. Cars three to eight are still in the tunnel, as emergency services rush to extract passengers from both sides.
It is unclear why the engineering vehicle had been parked on a slope and left unmanned, said the Taiwan Railways Administration, which has convened an emergency response team to handle the accident.
The driver in charge of the vehicle has been taken to a police station for questioning, said Hualien County Police Bureau Chief Tsai Ting-hsien. The Taiwan Railways Administration is planning to demand compensation from the company that owns the vehicle.
Taiwan media said many people were standing as the train was full, and were thrown about when it crashed.
Most of the fatalities were in the last two cars, authorities say. As of Friday noon, at least 41 people had been removed “without vital signs”, said the Taiwan Railways Administration. Another 72 were injured, and 61 had been taken to hospitals nearby.
Friday is the first day of the four-day Qing Ming tomb sweeping festival in Taiwan, in which many people travel back to their hometowns to visit their ancestors’ tombs.
Ambulances have been dispatched to help the passengers. “This is the first time I’ve heard in-tunnel announcements calling for cars to let ambulances pass,” said Ms Lin Yu-shan, who was on a bus in the 12.9km Hsuehshan Tunnel leading from the greater Taipei area to the east coast. The announcement was made shortly after the accident occurred, she said.
Taiwan’s last serious train accident happened in October 2018, when a Puyuma train derailed completely in Yilan, just north of Hualien. The Puyuma accident caused 18 deaths, and more than 200 people were injured.
Ms Lim said the site of the latest derailment was harder to reach because the only two roads to Hualien are always packed during the holidays.
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2021-04-02 08:22:51Z
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