An express train on its way from Prague to Kosice had only been travelling for an hour when it collided with a freight train carrying chemicals. Some passengers did not survive the accident.
An express train carrying hundreds of passengers crashed into an oncoming freight train in the Czech Republic. Four people were killed in the violent collision on Thursday night near Pardubice, Interior Minister Vit Rakusan said at the scene of the accident. 27 people were reportedly treated in hospital, five of whom suffered moderate injuries and the rest were slightly injured. According to the CTK agency, the dead were two women from Ukraine and two from Slovakia.
Numerous rescue workers such as firefighters, paramedics and doctors as well as two rescue helicopters rushed to the scene of the accident, which is about 100 kilometers east of Prague. The locomotives of both trains collided head-on. The first carriage of the passenger train, which was located directly behind the locomotive, was almost completely destroyed. Pictures showed that the train had derailed and been crushed. The material damage was estimated at the equivalent of more than four and a half million euros.
The night express train operated by the private railway company Regiojet was on its way from Prague to Kosice in Slovakia and had been travelling for just an hour when the accident occurred. According to the fire service, there were around 380 passengers on board. Many Ukrainians use the connection via Slovakia to Chop in the far west of Ukraine to visit their homeland. The uninjured passengers were taken to emergency accommodation by bus. The operator Regiojet promised compensation.
According to the fire department, the freight train was loaded with the corrosive chemical calcium carbide, which forms flammable gases when combined with water. “Fortunately, the first two wagons were empty, so the dangerous substance did not leak out,” said fire department spokeswoman Vendula Horakova.
Transport Minister Martin Kupka commented on the suspected cause of the accident on Thursday. According to the findings of the railway inspection, the express passenger train ran past a stop signal. “Whether it was a technical defect, a human error or a combination of both factors is the subject of detailed investigations,” Kupka said on the online platform X. It is still too early to draw any concrete conclusions.
The two train drivers survived the accident. The police began an investigation into negligent endangerment of the public. An eyewitness told the newspaper “Pravo”: “I thought the train was going onto the wrong track, even though the signal was green. Suddenly there was a bang and the train stopped.”
A passenger on the train, who was uninjured, reported afterwards: “I felt an impact and heard glass shattering – immediately after that I could hear crying.” The collision between the two trains could be heard from some distance away. “The collision woke us up, my wife thought that a house in the neighborhood had collapsed,” said a local resident.
Prime Minister Petr Fiala expressed his condolences to the relatives of the dead via the online platform X. “The collision of the two trains in Pardubice is a great disaster,” he wrote. “We are all thinking of the victims and injured.”
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