More than 130 killed in high-speed train crash
At least 139 people were killed and 57 other injured when a high-speed train from Istanbul to Ankara derailed today, the government crisis centre said.
At least four of the train’s cars overturned near Pamukova in Sakarya province, state railway authority deputy head Ali Kemal Ergulec said. The cause was not known.
Muammer Turker, heading the crisis centre in Sakarya, said authorities were not ruling out sabotage.
“We are assessing every possibility,” he said.
The high-speed train began operating on June 4 amid controversy, with critics saying that the tracks were old and could not withstand the new trains.
Mr Ergulec said the train would have been travelling at a normal speed in the area because the tracks at Pamukova were not geared to carry high-speed trains.
The derailment, with 234 passengers and nine crew on board, occurred 113 miles from Istanbul, about midway to Ankara, at around 7.45pm local time (5.45pm Irish time)
Suleyman Karaman, head of Turkey’s railway authority, said a team had been sent to the area to try and determine the cause of the crash. He quoted the train’s driver as saying the train was travelling at normal speed and that he “could not understand what had gone wrong”.
Governor Ayhan Cevik, who was speaking from the scene of the crash, said four or five train cars smashed into each other.
Feridun Turan, the mayor for Pamukova said he arrived at the scene soon after the crash.
“There were heads separated from bodies, there were legs,” he said.
Authorities closed roads leading to the area to allow ambulances and rescue workers to rush to the scene.
At the site of the crash, people were seen climbing overturned cars looking for survivors.
One man was seen trying to open a jammed door with broken windows.
Darkness was hampering rescue operations and soldiers were searching or treating people by torchlight.
Most of the damage occurred in the third and fourth cars, which smashed into one another.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan cancelled a trip to Bosnia scheduled for tomorrow and travelled to the area by helicopter.
Oguz Dizer, a journalist who was in the area at the time, told NTV television that soldiers were at the scene helping the injured.
He said he saw several bodies lying near the tracks.
“The scene is one of carnage,” Dizer said. “There are people lying all over the place.”
