A train carrying about 350 passengers collided with a truck in a “terrible” crash, killing at least 48 people and leaving at least 66 hospitalized.
At least 48 people have died after a train derailed in a tunnel in eastern Taiwan on Friday.
The train, packed with about 350 passengers, had reportedly hit a maintenance truck in what has been described as the island’s worst rail disaster in at least four decades.
According to local police, the truck slid down an embankment and struck the train before entering the tunnel. However, this is still being investigated.
Rescuers are still scrambling to reach those trapped inside while others crawl out of windows to safety. The eight-carriage express train traveled from Taipei to Taitung at about 9.30 am, carrying tourists at the start of a long weekend, when it came off the rails north of Hualien in eastern Taiwan, Taiwan’s transportation ministry said.
President Tsai Ing-wen’s office said she had ordered hospitals to prepare for a mass casualty event.
“In response to a train derailment in Hualien, Taiwan, our emergency services have been fully mobilized to rescue and assist the passengers and railway staff affected,” she said in a Twitter post on Friday.
“We will continue to do everything we can to ensure their safety in the wake of this heartbreaking incident.”
According to the local news website UDN, the train driver is among those dead, with images showing the front of the train inside the tunnel pulverized into a twisted mesh of metal.
Other images of the scene showed the back of a yellow flatbed truck on its side next to the train.
“There was a construction vehicle that didn’t park properly and slid onto the rail track,” Hualien county police chief Tsai Ding-Hsien told reporters.
“This is our initial understanding, and we are clarifying the cause of the incident,” he added.
A further 72 people are still believed to be trapped inside train carriages, while 66 passengers had been taken to hospital. Another live broadcast by UDN outside the tunnel showed at least two undamaged train carriages with rescuers helping passengers escape. “It felt like there was a sudden violent jolt, and I found myself falling to the floor,” an unidentified female survivor told the network.
We broke the window to climb the train’s roof to get out.
Local authorities are trying to manage traffic with the accident that occurred at the start of the busy annual Tomb Sweeping Festival — a long holiday weekend when Taiwan’s roads and railways are usually packed.
The crash is set to be one of Taiwan’s worst railway accidents in recent decades. The last major train derailment in Taiwan was in 2018, leaving 18 people dead at the southern end of the same line. Another crash in 1991 saw 30 passengers killed and 112 injured after two trains collided in Miaoli. Thirty were also killed in 1981 after a truck hit a passenger train at a level crossing and sent coaches over a bridge in Hsinchu.
