The Straits Times :
A train derailed along a touristy coastal railway in north-eastern Taiwan on Sunday, killing at least 22 and injuring 171 others, Taiwanese authorities and media said.
The train, Puyuma Express 6432, went off the tracks between the Dongshan and Suxin stations in Yilan county, near Taipei, at about 5pm, the semi-official Central News Agency and mass-circulation United Daily News reported.
Citing the authorities, they said 22 people were dead while 171 others were injured, of whom 10 were in serious condition.
An estimated 30 to 40 passengers remained
trapped in the train, which was travelling from Taipei’s Shulin station to the eastern coastal county of Taitung with 366 people on board, the reports said.
President Tsai Ing-wen described the accident as a “major tragedy” in a tweet Sunday evening. “We will use all our strength and efforts for the rescue,” she wrote on her Facebook page.
Hundreds of medics and firefighters despatched to the scene were rushing to take the injured, including the train driver, to hospitals and rescue those still in the carriages. Reports said the army was also sending 100 troops to the site. The authorities were also checking whether any foreigners were aboard the train.
Photographs posted on social media showed five out of the train’s eight carriages lying helter-skelter near the tracks at the accident site. Some had been flipped to their sides.
Purported photographs of the wreckage show bent stretches of the track piercing through the train’s windows.
A passenger identified only by his surname Ko told Apple Daily he heard sounds that went “pong, pong, pong” before a plume of smoke rose from the tracks.
A train derailed along a touristy coastal railway in north-eastern Taiwan on Sunday, killing at least 22 and injuring 171 others, Taiwanese authorities and media said.
The train, Puyuma Express 6432, went off the tracks between the Dongshan and Suxin stations in Yilan county, near Taipei, at about 5pm, the semi-official Central News Agency and mass-circulation United Daily News reported.
Citing the authorities, they said 22 people were dead while 171 others were injured, of whom 10 were in serious condition.
An estimated 30 to 40 passengers remained
trapped in the train, which was travelling from Taipei’s Shulin station to the eastern coastal county of Taitung with 366 people on board, the reports said.
President Tsai Ing-wen described the accident as a “major tragedy” in a tweet Sunday evening. “We will use all our strength and efforts for the rescue,” she wrote on her Facebook page.
Hundreds of medics and firefighters despatched to the scene were rushing to take the injured, including the train driver, to hospitals and rescue those still in the carriages. Reports said the army was also sending 100 troops to the site. The authorities were also checking whether any foreigners were aboard the train.
Photographs posted on social media showed five out of the train’s eight carriages lying helter-skelter near the tracks at the accident site. Some had been flipped to their sides.
Purported photographs of the wreckage show bent stretches of the track piercing through the train’s windows.
A passenger identified only by his surname Ko told Apple Daily he heard sounds that went “pong, pong, pong” before a plume of smoke rose from the tracks.
