18 killed after express train leaves tracks

EIGHTEEN people were killed and more than 130 injured when a train derailed in Taiwan yesterday.

The express was carrying more than 360 passengers from a suburb of Taipei towards Taitung, a city on the south-east coast, when it went off the tracks at 4.50pm.

Photos from the scene just south of the city of Luodong showed the train’s eight cars in a zig-zag formation near the tracks, some on their sides. Most of those killed were in the first car, which flipped over, a government spokesman said.