Accident Reconstruction Network > News >August 2008

Accident Reconstruction News Article

PRAGUE — At least 6 people were killed and 41others injured in an accident of the EuroCity passenger train running from Krakow, Poland, to Prague of the Czech Republic on Friday, police said.

According to preliminary information, the accident took place at around 10:30 local time, a police spokesman said. The engine and six passenger carriages were derailed.

The train crashed into a part of a road bridge, currently being reconstructed, which fell down just before the passing train, the Czech news agency the CTK said.

The ruins hit two carriages of the train, regional firefighters spokesman Petr Kudela said.

Lukas Humpl, spokesman for the Moravian-Silesian rescue service,told CTK the dead were five Czech women and a Polish man.

Out of the 41 injured, 13 people received severe injuries. They have been taken to ten hospitals.

The injured have suffered fractures, bleeding, brain and internal injuries. The condition of some of them is very serious, CTK said.

Two of the injured people are French citizens, another three or five injured people are Poles and one of the injured is an English- speaking person, it added.

Zdenek Nytra, head of Moravian-Silesian firefighters, said rescuers have extricated all passengers who survived the accident.

The train carried people to the concert of the British heavy metal group Iron Maiden in Prague Friday, CTK said.

The train was running at a speed of 140 km/hour at the time of the accident.

“The engine driver said that when he was passing the station at about 135km per hour, he noticed that the bridge structure swung and started to fall down. He applied the fast brake and hid in the engine room. In about six seconds, the train crashed (into the ruin) at a speed of 120km per hour,” said Jan Kucera, Rail Inspection deputy general inspector.

The engine driver suffered a lighter injury. Another two of the four-member train crew are also among the injured.

According to the Polish news agency PAP some 90 tickets were sold for the train in Poland.

The Polish government has offered the Czech Republic an immediate help in rescue works, Polish Health Minister Ewa Kopacz said on TVN24 channel.