Eighteen people have been killed and 175 others injured when one of Taiwan’s fastest passenger trains derailed Sunday on a curve along a popular weekend route.
The Puyuma express train was travelling from a suburb of Taipei toward Taitung carrying more than 360 passengers. It is a city on Taiwan’s south-east coast, when it went off the tracks at 4:50pm (local time), the Taiwan central government said in a statement.
Hours later, one of the train’s eight cars was lying overturned at a 75-degree angle. Its entire right side had been destroyed. It was unclear what caused the crash
The National Fire Agency had earlier cited the Cabinet spokesman’s office as saying 22 people were killed, but later lowered the toll to 18, saying there was a mistake in the calculations.
All 366 passengers onboard — including the dead and injured — had been evacuated or removed from the wreckage and attempted to identify them, but nightfall was complicating rescue work.
Most of the deaths were in the first car, which flipped over, a government spokesman said. It was unclear how many people may still be trapped in the train, said the spokesman. About 120 soldiers joined firefighters in the rescue work.
“The train was going very fast. I thought to myself: Why was it not slowing down on a curve?” 30-year-old Henry Tseng, who was onboard one of the overturned carriages and suffered eye injuries, told Reuters.
> Shiuly Rina
At least Eighteen People Killed in Taiwan due to Train Derailment
