Poland train crash leaves dozens dead or injured

[John Ashworth]

Poland train crash leaves dozens dead or injured

Head-on collision happened during maintenance work, with one train ending up on the wrong track, reports say

Agencies in Warsaw
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 4 March 2012 01.58 GMT

Two trains have collided head-on in southern Poland, killing a reported 13 people and injuring about 50, most of them seriously, officials have said.

Both trains were traveling on the same track but towards each other and collided head-on, Andrzej Pawlowski, a member of the board of the state railway company PKP, said in an interview on the all-news station TVN24.

He said one of the trains, which was traveling south from Warsaw to Krakow, should not have been on the track. The other train, headed from the eastern city of Przemysl to Warsaw, was on the correct track, Pawlowski said.

It was not immediately clear how the southbound train ended up on the wrong track. Maintenance work was being carried out on one of the tracks where the collision occurred, in the small town of Szczekociny.

Polish media broadcast images of white and green train cars that were twisted and appeared to be knocked off the tracks. "Everything indicates that this is one of the most serious railway catastrophes of recent years in our country," the transport minister Slawomir Nowak told TVN24 in a telephone interview. "There are people who have died, there are many injured people."

Nowak spoke as he was traveling to the site with the prime minister, Donald Tusk, after the accident on Saturday night.

Dozens of rescue officials and helicopters were deployed to help those injured in the collision.


Passenger trains collide in Poland, killing at least 8

By the CNN Wire Staff
March 4, 2012 -- Updated 0338 GMT (1138 HKT)

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
"We flew over the compartment like bags," one victim says
As many as 60 people are injured
The rescue operation is "difficult and complicated," a firefighter says

(CNN) -- Two passenger trains collided in southwestern Poland late Saturday, leaving several dead and dozens more injured, the country's state railway said.

The incident occurred around 9 p.m. CET Saturday (3 p.m. ET) in Szczekociny. Video from the scene showed rescue operations under way early Sunday amid the twisted, mangled wreckage.

"I felt the blow. I hit the person before me. The lights went out. Everything flew," one victim told CNN's Polish affiliate TVN. "We flew over the compartment like bags. We could hear screams. We prayed."

Information posted on the Polish State Railways website put the death toll at eight people, with 60 others injured. CNN affiliate TVN reported a death toll at 14, citing the country's interior minister, Jacek Cichocki.

One firefighter described the rescue operation as "difficult and complicated."

"The damage (to) the wagons is huge. We have contact with victims. We approach very cautiously," firefighter Jaroslaw Wojtasik told TVN.

More than 100 passengers who were not injured in the collision were evacuated to Warsaw, the railway said.


Fourteen killed in Polish head-on train collision

By Janusz and Chmielewski
SZCZECHOCINY, Poland | Sun Mar 4, 2012 3:35am GMT

(Reuters) - At least 14 people were killed when two passenger trains collided head-on in southern Poland late on Saturday in one of the country's worst train crashes in more than 20 years.

The two trains carrying an estimated 350 passengers were heading in opposite directions on the same track when they crashed at high speed in a rural area near the town of Szczechociny. At least 54 people were injured.

One of the green-and-cream coloured carriages of an intercity train traveling to Warsaw had jack-knifed upwards from the force of the crash. Other cars had derailed and were lying on their sides.

"This certainly is the most tragic train catastrophe in our history in many, many years," said Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who arrived at the site of the crash with several other government officials early on Sunday.

"At the moment we cannot with full responsibility give the final number of fatalities. We should expect at least 14, but we fear this number could rise to 15," he added.

Tusk said it was too early to speculate about the cause of the collision, but added that human error could not be excluded.

The fate of the two drivers was not immediately known as the authorities were still identifying the dead bodies

More than 350 firefighters rushed to the scene, but had to carry their equipment by hand because the trains collided in the middle of a field crossed only by the train tracks.

With the aid of a sniffer dog, rescue workers continued to search for other victims in the mass of mangled steel, where Tusk said they found at least one additional body, most likely dead.

"I felt the blow," an unnamed survivor told public television. "I hit the person before me. The lights went out. Everything flew. We flew over the compartment like bags. We could hear screams. We prayed."

The injured were transported to nearby hospitals. Among the passangers were several Ukrainians along with French and Spanish citizens, but none of them were hospitalised.

One of the trains had been going from Warsaw from to the town of Krakow and the other from the Polish capital to the town of Przemysl.

(Additional reporting by Karolina Slowikowska; Writing by Chris Borowski, editing by Myra MacDonald)

[John Ashworth]

It now has a Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Szczekocin ... _collision

[John Ashworth]

BBC 5 March 2012 Last updated at 15:41 GMT

Poland train crash: Rail controller faces charges

A Polish rail traffic controller is to be prosecuted over a train crash that left 16 people dead and more than 50 others injured.

Poland is observing two days of mourning after two passenger trains crashed head on near the southern city of Krakow on Saturday night.

Two officials on duty at the time of the disaster have been questioned.

One is to be charged because both trains ended up on the same track. He could face eight years in jail.

He has not yet been formally accused of unintentionally causing the crash because of the state of his health, prosecutor Tomasz Ozimek has said.

Polish media report that he is in a state of shock and has been taken to a psychiatric hospital for treatment.

Points investigated

Flags are flying at half-mast on public buildings. Some news websites, including Polish national radio and the daily Rzeczpospolita, are using only black-and-white pictures.

The two trains crashed near Szczekociny. There were 10 carriages in total, carrying about 350 passengers.

It is reported to be Poland's worst train accident for 20 years.

One of those who died was a US citizen and the injured included citizens of the Czech Republic, Moldova and Ukraine, Polish officials said. Three of the injured are critically ill.

Rescuers are still scouring the wreckage, trying to find out why both trains came to be on the same track.

Investigators hope that statements from the drivers and data from the trains' black boxes will reveal whether human error was to blame.

Polish media reports suggest a set of points had been installed in the area in recent months and one of the lines of inquiry is that the points either failed or were not set correctly.

Alcohol tests on the railway workers on duty were said to be negative.

Polish radio says the regional train travelling north from Przemysl to Warsaw was powered by a very heavy locomotive and suffered much less damage than the southbound Warsaw-Krakow express train.

Transport Minister Slawomir Nowak insisted that Poland's railways were "still very safe" and said football fans planning to travel to Euro 2012 by train should not be put off. Poland and Ukraine will co-host the tournament this summer.