Dead in collision between trains in Belgium

There are three deaths. There are also nine people injured, of whom a few serious. On the site of the accident were also provided that another 27 people light injured.

The Mayor warned last night that the number of victims can still add up. The Belgian railway SNCB carrier reports that two of the six carriages are off track, a is there on its side. According to witnesses is the front train car completely destroyed. Supposedly the train operator one of the dead. There were about 40 passengers on the train.

How the two trains ended up on the same track, track Manager Infrabel is not clear. The VRT reports that work on the track were carried out. Also there were last week strikes at the NMBS rail, which also was sabotaged. The SNCB said in the NOS Radio 1 journal that there it will be investigated whether there is a connection. In addition, there have been problems on the route yesterday because of a lightning strike earlier in the evening.

Also, it is not clear how hard the trains reason at the time of the accident, just after 11 pm last night. The passenger train is on the back of the freight train. A spokesman for Infrabel speaks of "a heavy collision", according to VTM. The freight train was loaded with gravel from a quarry.

Bellot is the Belgian Minister of transport at the place of the accident and has contact with carriers of the two trains on the accident. The Belgian Prime Minister Michel and the Minister-president of Flanders Geert Bourgeois have the relatives with sympathy via Twitter.

On 3 July 2008, there was, in the neighborhood of the accident last night, also a train collision between a passenger train and a freight train. 64 people were injured in that accident. Also when would it have geonweerd, but two years later the court eventually held the train driver and the SNCB responsible. The machinist was driven by a red signal.

By: Editorial NOS: Photo: REUTERS