tag

At least 39 people died in southern Spain after ‌a high-speed train derailed and collided with an oncoming one on Sunday night in one of the worst railway accidents in Europe ‌in the past 80 years.  Twelve were in ‍intensive care after the accident near Adamuz in the province of Cordoba, about 360km south of Madrid, according to emergency services. Experts studying the crash site say a faulty rail joint may be key to determining the cause of the crash. “The train tipped to one side... then everything went dark, and all I heard was screams,” said Ana Garcia Aranda, 26, who was travelling back to Madrid ‍and was being treated at a Red Cross centre in Adamuz.  Limping and wrapped in a blanket, her face covered with plasters, she described how fellow passengers dragged her out of the train covered in blood. Firefighters rescued her pregnant sister from the wreckage and an ambulance took them both to hospital. “There were people who were fine and others who were very, very badly injured.  You had them right in front of you and you knew they were going to die, and you couldn’t do anything,” she said. The collision occurred in a hilly, olive-growing region which could only be accessed by a single-track road, making it difficult for ambulances to enter and exit, Iñigo Vila, national emergency director at the Spanish ‌Red Cross, said.  Emergency teams were struggling to bring in heavy machinery that could lift the wreckage to get access to more of the dead, the Andalusia region’s President Juan Manuel Moreno said. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez cancelled his trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and Transport Minister Oscar Puente visited the crash ‍site Tuesday.  Police drone footage showed how the trains came to a standstill 500 ‌metres apart. One train’s carriage was split in two, and the locomotive was crushed like a tin can. Experts studying the crash site found a broken joint on the rails, which created a gap between the rail sections that widened as trains continued to travel on the track, according to a source briefed on initial investigations into the disaster.

Eleven people were killed and two others injured in the early hours of Thursday, after a test train collided with maintenance workers on the track in Kunming, capital of southwest China's Yunnan Province.The accident happened at the Luoyangzhen station in Kunming, according to the China's News Agency (Xinhua).The cause of the accident is under investigation, and the railway station has so far resumed operations.

At least 24 people were killed, and 18 others injured when a passenger bus collided with a truck in the southern Indian state of Telangana. Indian police said the accident occurred as the bus, carrying about 70 passengers, was traveling to Hyderabad, the state capital.Reports indicate that the truck, which was transporting gravel, collided with the bus at high force, trapping several passengers inside. Initial investigations suggest that excessive speed and loss of control by the truck driver were the likely causes of the accident.Police said the dead included the drivers of the bus and the truck, as well as a 10-month-old baby and its mother. Authorities have launched an investigation into the accident.Traffic accidents are common in India as a result of overloading, poor infrastructure and reckless driving.

Three people were killed, and 16 others were injured when a minibus carrying farmworkers collided with a truck in Mersin Province, southern Turkey. According to Anadolu Agency, the minibus rammed into the rear of a trailer on the Ankara-Tarsus highway, killing three passengers. Medical teams transported 16 injured people to hospital for treatment. In May, 12 people were injured in a similar crash involving a workers' bus and a car in Kahramanmaras Province, also in southern Turkey.

At least 10 people were killed and 41 others were injured when a train collided with a bus at a rail crossing in the State of Mexico, according to authorities. Civil Protection General Coordinator Adrian Hernandez confirmed the casualty toll, noting that four of the injured remain in critical condition. Security footage showed the double-decker bus slowly moving across the train tracks. The train then suddenly appeared, ramming the bus at its midpoint and splitting the vehicle in two. The bus driver was arrested at the request of the local public prosecutor's office.