On Friday, a train derailed partly inside a tunnel in Taiwan, killing at least 50 people and injuring over 80 more.
The 408 Taroko Express was travelling south carrying almost 500 passengers, including many tourists, towards Taitung, when it crashed inside a tunnel just outside Hualien City at about 9.30am local time.
Hundreds of passengers were stuck for hours while rescuers attempted to access the “deformed” carriages inside the tunnel.
The train collided with a truck that rolled off the road leading to a nearby construction site, said the authorities. Police had taken in the driver of the truck for questioning.
The train’s 33-year-old driver also died in the crash. He was a recently married young man from Taipei.
“People just fell all over each other, on top of one another,” one female survivor told a local television. “It was terrifying. There were whole families there.”
Taiwan’s mountainous east coast is a popular tourist destination, and the Taipei-to-Hualien railway line is known for its tunnels and a road that hugs the coast just north of Hualien, where the crash happened. The accident came on the first day of the annual Tomb Sweeping Festival which is a tourist attraction.
Scenes of chaos can be seen in footage and images from the crash, with one carriage ripped apart and others tossed on their sides or smashed against the tunnel walls. The yellow truck, which caused the crash, was smashed against the hillside.
Taiwanese President, Tsai Ing-wen, said on Twitter that, their emergency services have been fully mobilized to rescue and assist passengers and railway staff who got affected. “We will continue to do everything we can to ensure their safety in the wake of this heartbreaking incident.”
At least 70 people were stuck for hours and hundreds of medical and military personnel, cars, and helicopters were deployed to the scene.
The crash on Friday is Taiwan’s deadliest train tragedy in decades. In 1991, two trains collided in Miaoli County, western Taiwan, killing 30 people and injuring more than 100.
