At least five killed in French train crash
Rescue workers worked through the night to free bodies from the crumpled wreckage of a passenger train that collided head-on with a freight train near France’s north-eastern border with Luxembourg, killing at least five people.
The head-on impact just before noon yesterday lifted one of the passenger train’s cars on top of the other, leaving a pile of tangled metal on the tracks at Zoufftgen, about one mile south of the border.
Rescuers had retrieved five bodies by yesterday evening, police said, and held out no hope that any survivors remained trapped inside, though rescue efforts were expected to continue through the night.
Sixteen people were injured, two seriously, according to French police.
“If we pull out any more people, they will not be alive,” said Luxembourg police spokeswoman Kristine Schmidt.
Another official, Bernard Franoz of the Zoufftgen police, said there could be as many as three more bodies under the wreckage.
The total number of passengers aboard the train was not known, and Franoz said it would take until at least this afternoon to rule out any other victims.
Five hearses arrived at the site, where huge spotlights shined down on the rescuers peeling layers and shards of metal.
“This is a terrible tragedy,” said Jean-Marie Demange, a national politician and mayor of the nearby town of Thionville. “Many people from both countries commute across the border.”
Authorities in France’s region of Lorraine said the dead were two train drivers, a person who was working on the tracks and two passengers.
The passenger train was travelling from Luxembourg to the French city of Nancy. The train line it was travelling on was being repaired, so it switched onto a second track, hitting the oncoming freight train, said France’s SNCF rail operator.
Several cars of the freight train were either crumpled up, bent skyward or tipped over on their sides.
More than 300 police and rescue workers from France and Luxembourg were at the scene.
French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin delayed a trip to the French Antilles to visit the crash site with his counterpart from Luxembourg, Jean-Claude Juncker. Villepin said he was “deeply distressed by this drama”.
Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg and French transport minister Dominique Perben also visited.
“Was it a technical failure or a human failure? This is a question that we must find out,” Perben said.
SNCF director-general Guillaume Pepy said the 22-car freight train had a green light at the time of the crash and said there were no signs of speeding.
A bus service was introduced between Thionville and Luxembourg to replace the trains. Normally some 150 trains a day run on the line but because of the construction work traffic had been reduced to 20 or 30 a day before the crash slashed that to zero.
