Three people were killed and at least six others injured Wednesday morning when a passenger train exploded off the east coast of Scotland as the country was hit by storms, according to reports.
Police were called to the scene at Stonehaven, about 100 miles northeast of Edinburgh, at 9:45 a.m. local time, where several ambulances, a medical chopper and several firearms were at the scene.
The driver of the train is believed to be among the dead, but formal identification has not yet been made, British transport police said. Six people were hospitalized.
‘Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of paramedics, we can confirm that three people on the scene have been pronounced dead,’ ‘police said in a statement.
Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon told lawmakers that initial reports suggested there were “serious injuries” in what she tweeted was an “extremely serious incident.”
“I have received an initial report from Network Rail and the emergency services and have been updated. “All my thoughts are with those involved,” Stugeon was quoted as saying by the BBC.
The dismissal happened at “a very difficult location for emergency services to access,” she said.
“I know and appreciate that there will be many families who will be scared if they believe they had relatives who were on that train,” Sturgeon added.
“We will do everything we can to ensure that the emergency services are supported, that families are supported,” she said.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a tweet that his “thoughts are with all those affected.”
Dark smoke fell from the bottom of a valley after the ScotRail train retreated overnight after heavy rain, Reuters reported.
The BBC reported that the train – bound from Aberdeen to Glasgow Queen Street – consisted of two locomotives, one at the front and one at the rear, and four passenger cars.
The first locomotive and three of the passenger cars had left the track and landed on a river bank, reports said.
Andrew Haines, head of Network Rail, cut short his family holiday in Italy to fly back to the UK and to the site, according to the BBC.
Train drivers union Aslef official Kevin Lindsay said: “We are aware that this is a very serious incident and our thoughts are involved with everyone.”
Stonehaven is on the line trains connecting Aberdeen to the cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow along a hilly area that was hit overnight by storms and flash floods.
“We apparently do not know why the dismissal took place, but we obviously suffered terrible weather here,” said local lawmaker Andrew Bowie.
Britain has one of the lowest rates of fatal rail accidents, with a stronger safety record than Germany and France in recent years, according to Eurostat data quoted by Reuters.
The worst rail disasters in Britain in recent decades were a 1999 collision between two trains at Ladbroke Grove in London, in which 31 people were killed, and a 2001 accident near Selby in northeast England, in which 10 people were killed. died after a car ran over the track and was hit by two trains.
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