Truck driver blamed for deadly train crash
A PASSENGER train carrying people home after the holidays slammed into a lorry in rural South Africa, killing at least 18 people and injuring about 260 others, the government said.
Authorities blamed the lorry driver for allegedly trying to cross the tracks just ahead of the oncoming train, part of which burst into flames after the collision and forced passengers to hurriedly drag their luggage from the smoking wreck to a nearby road.
“The truck driver was taking chances. He thought that he was going to pass through,” Transport Minister Joe Maswanganyi told journalists. “Little did he know that the train was going to hit him. That has cost a lot of lives.”
At least 18 people died and 260 were injured, four of them critically, said Mr Maswanganyi. He indicated that the death toll could rise.
The train, with 429 passengers aboard, had been travelling from Port Elizabeth yesterday to the country’s commercial hub, Johannesburg.
Video shows part of the Shosholoza Meyl train in flames after the collision that occurred between the communities of Hennenman and Kroonstad in Free State province.
The crash derailed half a dozen carriages, and power lines were damaged.
A large vehicle was upsidedown beside a train carriage that appeared to have partly crushed another, smaller vehicle.
The truck driver emerged unscathed from the accident and the train driver and his assistant suffered minor injuries, said Mthuthuzeli Swartz, acting chief executive of South Africa’s stateowned passenger rail agency.
Mr Swartz told local media outlet eNCA that the lorry towing two trailers was halfway across the track when it was hit by the train and dragged for 400 metres.
“Human error” caused the accident, he said.