TAIPEI: At least 49 people were killed on Friday when a packed train derailed inside a tunnel in eastern Taiwan at the start of a holiday weekend, the island’s worst railway accident in decades.
Officials said the devastating accident could have been caused by a maintenance vehicle falling down an embankment and striking the train before it entered the tunnel near the coastal city of Hualien.
“There was a construction vehicle that didn’t park properly and slid onto the rail track,” Hualien county police chief Tsai Ding-hsien told reporters.
Local media pictures from the scene showed the back of a yellow flatbed truck on its side next to the train.
The eight-carriage train was packed with 480 people heading down the east coast for the annual Tomb Sweeping Festival, a four-day public holiday.
Taiwan’s National Fire Agency said 66 passengers were sent to hospital on top of the 49 confirmed dead and some yet to be identified body parts.
One unnamed female survivor told TVBS news channel of trapped passengers — some crying out for help, others unconscious.
“There were many people pressed under the seats and others on top of those seats too,” she said.
