Taipei, Taiwan.
At least 51 people they died and more than 140 injured were taken to hospital, the Taiwanese National Fire Agency said. A maintenance vehicle could have caused the accident by sliding on an embankment and hitting the train just before entering the tunnel near the coastal city of Hualien, authorities said.
“There was a construction vehicle that was not parked properly and slipped on the railway,” Hualien County Police Chief Tsai Ding-hsien told reporters.
“It is suspected that the driver did not apply the parking brake enough, so the vehicle slipped 20 meters to the railways,” Taiwan Railway Authority Deputy Director Feng Hui-sheng told reporters.
Local media photos taken on the spot showed the back of a yellow truck overturned next to the train. President Tsai Ing-wen ordered hospitals to prepare to receive many victims, according to his office.
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“The main priority now is to help trapped people,” his office said in a statement. The accident happened around 09:30 (01:30 GMT) on the eastern line of Taiwan.
Images published by the local UDN press showed that the front of the train inside the tunnel I had been devastated. The Taiwan Red Cross also released lifeboat images wearing helmets and flashlights that went on the roof of the wrecked train inside the tunnel to reach the survivors.
“Sudden violent agitation”
The passengers behind the convoy succeeded came out relatively unharmed of the accident. “I felt like there was a sudden, violent, shaking to the ground,” a woman told the television network. “We broke the window to get on the roof of the train and get out.”
The accident coincides with the start of the annual grave cleaning holiday, a long holiday weekend that fills the country’s roads and railways.
During this period, the inhabitants generally return to their hometowns to clean the graves of their relatives and to make offerings. The eastern Taiwan railway line is often a tourist attraction as it stretches along its splendid and less populated east coast.
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Through several tunnels and bridges it winds through spectacular mountains and gorges before descending through the Huadong Valley. Friday’s accident is one of the worst rail disasters in Taiwan.
The last big derailment returns in 2018, when 18 people died at the southern end of the same line. The driver of that eight-car train was then charged with negligent homicide. More than 200 of the 366 passengers were injured.
This accident was the worst since 1991, when 30 passengers were killed and 112 injured in a collision of two trains at Miaoli. The Apple Daily reported that the worst accident on the island was in 1948 and left 64 dead.