ONE KILLED, SEVERAL INJURED IN DUTCH PASSENGER TRAIN ACCIDENT

Tue 04 Apr 2023:

At least one person was killed and 30 people were injured, many of them seriously, when a passenger train carrying about 50 people, derailed in the Netherlands early Tuesday, after colliding with construction equipment on the track.

The person who died had been working for construction company. A goods train also collided with the crane, which was being used for repairs, to two of four railway tracks near Voorschoten.

Emergency services were quickly dispatched to the scene to assist victims in the town of Voorschoten, a village between The Hague and Amsterdam.

Between 50 and 60 people were aboard the double-decker night train from the city of Leiden, 30 of them were injured.

“There was a heavy thud, windows shattered,” said one passenger who was able to escape.

Most people were able to exit the train themselves, eventually climbing to safety on a makeshift ladder and bridge construction down a steep embankment and across a deep drainage ditch between the tracks and fields below.

“We don’t understand how this could have happened,” said John Voppen, CEO of ProRail, the Netherlands’ government rail maintenance organization.

At a morning press conference, Voppen told reporters that a passenger train and a freight train had been involved in a collision with a crane conducting track work. Voppen said it was unclear how the accident occurred since the crane had been parked on tracks not currently in use.

“The crane was part of maintenance work on two tracks that were closed to traffic, while two other of four tracks total remained open,” said ProRail’s Voppen. “We have no idea how the crane got on the track that was still open for traffic.”

Pro Rail says train service on the line will be shut down for days.

Police have launched an inquiry, as has the Dutch Safety Board, which will focus on how two trains could have collided, with a crane that was supposed to be on one of two tracks, taken out of service for maintenance.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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