18 dead, 171 injured, in Taiwan train crash
AT LEAST 18 people were killed and 171 injured yesterday when one of Taiwan’s new fast trains derailed on a curve along a popular weekend route.
The Puyuma express was carrying more than 366 passengers from Taipei towards Taitung, a city in the south east, when it went off the tracks at 4.50pm, Taiwan’s government said.
Hours later, one of the train’s eight carriages was tipped over at a 75-degree angle, its entire right side destroyed. Firefighters with lights on their hard hats, fearing people were trapped beneath, were looking as a crane prepared to upend the carriage.
Some passengers were crushed to death, Gen Chen Chung-chi, the spokesman for the ministry of national defence, said. “Their train car turned over. They were crushed, so they died right away,” he added.
Soldiers had started removing bodies for identification he said, but nightfall was complicating the rescue work.
The crash happened just south of the city of Luodong and saw the train’s eight cars fall in a zig-zag formation near the tracks. Five of the cars were flipped on to their sides.
Most of the deaths were in the first carriage which turned completely over, a government spokesman said.