Taiwan train accident: officials seek arrest after derailment

Taiwanese prosecutors have identified a construction site manager whose truck is suspected of causing a train accident, which left at least 51 people dead and more than 156 injured.

The train is believed to have collided with an unmanned truck that slid 20 meters down a slope to the train tracks after the emergency brake was not applied properly.

This fired the first four cars into a nearby tunnel, causing the majority of passenger deaths. It is estimated that the authorities have been able to rescue about 100 people from these wagons, which crumpled violently after the impact.

Speaking to the United Daily News of Taiwan, a survivor said those trapped in the tunnel had to break the window to escape.

“It felt like there was a sudden, violent jolt and I found myself falling to the ground,” he said.

“We broke the window to get on the roof of the train to get out.”

Another injured passenger said that many were crushed under the seats of the train, causing them to lose consciousness.

“Many people were crushed under the train seats in the collision. And there were other people on top of the seats. So those below were pressed and crushed and lost consciousness,” he said.

“At first, they still responded when we called them. But I guess they lost consciousness afterward.”

The accident, which has become the country’s worst rail disaster in 73 years, occurred on Friday morning at 9 a.m. on the weekend of Grave Sweeping Day in Taiwan, a national holiday in which women families remember and celebrate their ancestors. Holidays often drive many city workers back to their hometowns, which explains the busy train.

Carrying about 480 passengers, the train was traveling from the capital of Taiwan, Taipei, in the north of the country, to Taitung, in the south, before the collision occurred in Hualien, just over two hours away.

According to local news website UDN, the train conductor is among the dead, with images showing that the front of the train inside the tunnel had been pulverized on twisted metal mesh.

Other images from the scene showed the back of a yellow flatbed truck sideways to the side of the train.

“There was a construction vehicle that was not parked properly and it slid onto the train tracks,” Hualien County Police Chief Tsai Ding-hsien told reporters.

“This is our initial understanding and we are clarifying the cause of the incident.”

Feng Hui-sheng, deputy director of the Taiwan Railway Authority, told reporters that the driver was suspected “not to hit the handbrake enough to cause the vehicle to slide 20 meters … on the train line. “.

The last major train derailment in Taiwan was in 2018, killing 18 people at the southern end of the same line.

In another accident in 1991, 30 passengers were killed and 112 injured after two trains collided at Miaoli.

Thirty also died in 1981 after a truck collided with a passenger train at a level crossing and sent coaches over a bridge in Hsinchu.