Railway accidents

Citation

(2000), "Railway accidents", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 9 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2000.07309eac.004

Railway accidents

Railway accidents

4 January 2000 – Hedmark, Near Oslo, Norway

Several people were killed and many injured when two trains collided today at a station in Hedmark, about 100km north of Oslo, Norwegian news agency reported. NTB quoted Norway's state railway authority, NSB, saying the collision was between two passenger trains at the station at around 1230, GMT. One of the trains was reported to be on fire.

4 January 2000 – Two passenger trains collided in south Norway today, killing at least seven people with several others feared trapped in blazing wreckage, police said. The two trains, carrying 96 people, collided at Asta station near the town of Elverum, about 150km north of Oslo. After nightfall, flames were still billowing from the windows of one of the trains on the fringes of a forest following the crash at about 1230 UTC. At least one carriage overturned. Jostein Loken, a deputy police chief in Elverum, told NRK public radio:

We can confirm seven dead.

He said that 22 people were taken to hospital. About 47 people with minor injuries were driven to a local hotel. Loken said that the death toll might rise but that police did not have a complete overview. He said:

We believe that some uninjured people may have left the crash site.

Ove Osgjelten, leading police work at the scene of the accident, told NRK:

There are still people in the trains. I don't know how many.

One of the trains was an express, travelling from Trondheim on Norway's west coast south to Oslo, while the other was a local train travelling between the towns of Hamar and Rena. National Railway spokesman, Arvid Bardstuen, said it was too early to establish what had been the cause of the crash between the two diesel trains. Four rescue helicopters were at the scene and eight ambulances were carrying the injured to hospitals in the nearby towns of Eiverum and Hamar.

5 January 2000 – Norwegian rescue workers will start the search today through the burned-out wrecks of two trains in which up to 33 people are feared to have died in a head-on collision. Rescue workers found seven bodies yesterday but police said a further 26 bodies were believed to be in carriages which caught fire. The crash took place on a long single line of track meant to be reserved for alternating north-bound and south-bound traffic. The two trains, believed to be carrying 100 people, smashed into each other on a curve at Asta station, about 160km north of Oslo. Several carriages turned over and caught fire. Police chief Magnar Lynum told NRK public radio:

Chances of finding any of the missing alive in the trains are very low.

Sixty-seven people survived the crash, including 30 injured. Some had severe facial burns. The figure of 100 people on board was based on a railway company count of 96 passengers, two drivers and two conductors. Rescue workers would start searching the train this morning, Lynum said. Rescuers did not try to enter the trains after firefighters doused the blaze, fearing possible explosions and saying the charred carriages were still dangerously hot despite freezing temperatures outside. Officials said it was too early to speculate on what went wrong but the line lacked some modern safety controls used on other lines in Norway, including a system to prevent trains from driving past red stop signs. In addition, both locomotives ran on diesel rather than electric power – on Norway's electric network, external controllers can simply turn off the power to stop trains in case of danger. For diesel trains, a controller has the more time-consuming task of calling the driver by radio telephone. Both drivers were missing and feared killed in the accident. Rail officials estimated that each train was travelling at about 80km per hour and that the drivers had little time to brake due to poor visibility around a bend.

6 January 2000 – Norway's train drivers today began a boycott of a line where two trains crashed this week, killing at least 16 people, after a driver apparently passed a red stop signal. Stein Erik Olsen, national safety representative for Norway's 1,100 train drivers, said:

We will boycott the line with its current signalling and technical systems. They're not good enough.

Searchers recovered two more bodies from the burned out wreckage of the two trains today, bringing the total extracted to 14, with two other corpses known to be trapped inside. Workers used cranes and saws to open the wreckage. A total of 19 people have been reported missing. Police say several other bodies may be in the wreckage but reckon that the final toll will be well below early predictions Olsen said train drivers would drive on the track, due to stay closed for several days while wreckage is cleared, only if safety systems were upgraded or if all the small stations along the line were staffed. Upgrades could take months. The director of the state rail network, Steinar Killi, has said there was no sign of a technical fault in the signalling system. The north-bound local train inexplicably failed to stop at a crossing point about five km south of the crash site, where it would normally await the south-bound express. The two collided about five minutes later.

7 January 2000 – Cranes began lifting away the twisted wreckage of two passenger trains in southern Norway today, while investigators sought to identify the charred bodies of 18 victims of the collision. Search crews used cranes to move a 100-ton locomotive, which was overturned and held in place by an army tank, a backhoe and cables, according to the Norwegian news agency NTB. With 18 bodies recovered, searchers looked for the remains of an estimated two more victims, using teaspoons and other delicate tools, in an operation likened to an archaeological dig. In Oslo, experts were attempting to identify the remains of victims, in some cases using dental records and samples of genetic materials. Police said 14 of the victims were Norwegian, along with one Swede, one Dane and one Russian.

8 January 2000 – The death toll from Norway's train crash has risen to 19, as investigators complete their search for victims. Police spokesman Per-Erik Kjelifstad said authorities hoped the body of a 19th victim would be the last found in the wreckage of the train. Specialist teams were cutting up and lifting away debris from the disaster scene at Asta station, about 180km north of Oslo, today. Mr Kjelifstad said:

No-one else has been reported missing, and nothing leads us to believe there might be a 20th victim.

9 January 2000 – The driver of one of the two passenger trains involved in a head-on collision in southern Norway, killing 19 people, inexplicably drove past a red light, investigators said today. The Norwegian National Rail Administration said in a statement, giving preliminary conclusions into the crash:

The accident inquiry cannot say why the train passed the signal.

It said the driver of the north-bound local train failed to stop at Rudstad station before driving up a single track. The train collided minutes later with a south-bound express at Asta station, about 160km north of Oslo. Both drivers died. Searchers have recovered 19 bodies from the twisted wreckage.

9 January 2000 – Near Bandarak, India

A passing train struck and killed at least ten people after they disembarked from another train in the eastern Indian state of Bihar today, officials said. They said passengers had stepped off a local train and were crossing an adjacent track in thick fog when they were run down by the Guwahati-bound Rajdhani Express near Bandarak, 110km east of the state capital, Patna. Divisional Railway Manager S.P. Vatsa said:

Due to thick fog they could not spot the Rajdhani Express running on the track and were crushed.

1 February 2000 – Bethel Area, North Carolina, USA

Authorities evacuated a wide area of rural North Carolina today, after a CSX freight train carrying phosphoric acid and other chemicals derailed and caught fire, spewing a plume of acrid, black smoke. Ten cars from the 30-car train left the track and tumbled into Grindle Creek about 1045 hrs, five miles east Bethel in Pitt County, said Pitt County spokesman, Arlen Holt. At least four cars caught fire, he said. No injuries were reported, but the potentially toxic dense smoke from the burning wreckage compelled officials to evacuate the sparsely populated area around the crash site. Holt said, adding that the evacuation order may stand through the night:

We've got a 10-mile area blocked off in Pitt and Martin counties.

Holt said crews were trying to extinguish the fire, so hazardous materials experts could remove the chemicals and evacuees can return home. A state Forest Service helicopter dumped buckets of water on the blaze this afternoon, and CSX brought in a flatbed rail car to be used as a water-pumping platform, he said. The train was carrying ethylene glycol, a chemical found in antifreeze, as well as phosphoric acid, terephthlic acid and dichloroproprene, said Tom Ditt, a spokesman for the state emergency management office. Ditt said the state dispatched air and water quality experts and its regional response team from Williamston to aid Pill County authorities. Holt said the train was headed south when it went off the Grindle Creek trestle. Pitt County sheriff's deputies set up road blocks to the south and west of the site along N.C. 11 and N.C. 903 leading to the Martin County line.

2 February 2000

Hundreds of evacuees were back home today after firefighters extinguished two rail cars that caught fire when a freight train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed. The two cars that caught fire did not contain hazardous materials, but about 15 homes near the derailment site remained under an evacuation order until midday tomorrow, Pitt County spokesman, Arlen Holt said today. CSX planned to begin rebuilding the rail line through the swampy area today, so rail cars can be brought in to transfer cargo from the derailed cars, he said. Fifteen cars from the 38-car train left the track and tumbled into Grindle Creek yesterday morning. The train had been travelling from Rocky Mount to Greenville. The derailment's cause was not immediately clear. No injuries were reported, but dense smoke from the burning wreckage compelled officials to evacuate the sparsely-populated area around the crash site. About 150 homes were affected by the initial evacuation order, which was lifted yesterday night.

6 February 2000 – Bruhl, Germany

At least seven people were killed and 100 injured today when a train plunged off of one of Europe's busiest railway routes and ploughed into a house near Cologne. Police said they could not rule out finding further bodies, as hundreds of rescue workers sifted through the wreckage of the train near Bruhl, south of Cologne. The train derailed around midnight (2300 UTC, February 5) as it travelled from Amsterdam to Basle and was diverted from one track to another because of building work on the line. The head of Germany Railways said an initial inspection of the site suggested the driver could have been travelling too fast. A total of 20 passengers were hospitalised with serious wounds, out of a total 100 injured, most of them slightly. An elderly couple in the house escaped unharmed but were in shock. Police did not give the nationality of those killed but said the train was carrying some 300 people from across Europe and the USA. The driver was injured but survived. Five carriages and the locomotive left the track just outside Bruhl railway station and two carriages then plummeted down an embankment into the house, landing in its living room and front garden. Police spokesman Winrich Granitzka said:

I'm absolutely amazed it is not any worse.

He said trees by the track had kept some of the carriages from failing down the slope. Around 300 rescue workers including doctors attended to the injured and looked for more bodies laying underneath the wreckage. A police spokesman said:

The death toll is not expected to rise dramatically.

Rail officials said the train involved was not one of the high-speed Inter-City Express trains but a slower "D-train" often used for overnight journeys. Speeds of up to 120kph (75mph) would normally be allowed through the Bruhl station but because of the diversion, a speed restriction of just 40kph (25mph) had been imposed. Deutsche Bahn (German Railways) chief executive, Helmut Mehdorn, said the extent of the damage suggested that the train's speed was much higher. A Deutsche Bahn spokesman said the train consisted of carriages from various European countries but that the locomotive and driver were German. Results from the train's "black box" of internal measurements were due later in the day.

7 February 2000 – Rescue workers dug through debris today for more bodies in the wreckage of a Europe express train which jumped the tracks and ploughed into a house near Cologne, killing at least nine people and injuring 100. Police said the death toll could rise further from yesterday's accident. A handful of the worst injured fought for their lives in hospital. A further 22 people believed to be on the train were missing, including 16 German, four US and two Dutch citizens. Rail investigators and the government pledged a full inquiry into Germany's worst crash since the Eschede disaster of June 1988, when 101 people were killed in modern Germany's deadliest rail disaster. Rail officials said yesterday's train with 300 passengers on board was travelling at 120kph as it crossed points diverting it past building work on the track just outside Bruhl station. The speed limit for the diversion was 40kph. Deutsche Bahn (German Railways), struggling to improve its safety image after a faulty wheel was blamed for the Eschede accident, ruled out technical faults on the train and track and pointed to human error as the possible cause. Deutsche Bahn chief, Hartmut Mehdorn, said:

The question is whether the points were set properly, whether instructions to the driver were correct and whether all regulations were adhered to.

He said he hoped the 28-year-old German driver, who survived the crash but suffered shock, could be questioned about the accident soon. Further doubts about the cause of the accident were sown by the train's "black box" data recorder. Recordings taken by the "black box" showed the driver initially slowed down to below 50kph in the run-up to the switch but then accelerated back up to 120 kph, the usual speed limit for the stretch without the diversion, officials said.

15 February 2000 – Baxter Area, Tennessee, USA

A freight train carrying propane tank cars derailed in Baxter today, and nearby residents were evacuated because of the threat of an explosion. Two tank cars of the Nashville and Eastern Railroad train left the tracks and a third ended up teetering precariously, according to Marty Smith, operations officer with the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency. The train left the tracks in Baxter, 70 miles east of Nashville. Students were removed from a nearby elementary school and other homes and businesses in the vicinity were emptied. The train was headed for the Cumberland Propane Co. in Cookeville, Tennessee, Smith said.

19 February 2000 – Bhusawal, India

A total of 18 people were killed, three of them children, when a fire broke out on board a passenger train in the western Indian state of Maharashtra. Police said the tragedy occurred in the early hours of today, about 450 km north of Bombay, near the town of Bhusawal. Reports said the fire started in the pantry car and quickly spread to five other coaches in the Punjab Mail train, which was on its way from Bombay to Fereozepur. Most of the estimated 1,000 passengers travelling in the train were apparently sleeping when the fire broke out. As well as the 18 killed, about 23 people suffered injuries in the disaster. The cause of the fire has not so far been established. Senior railway officials have rushed to the site to supervise the relief operation, and rail traffic has been diverted. Mukul Marwah, public relations officer of the Central Indian Railway, said:

Investigations are taking place to find out the cause of the fire, which has since been contained.