GHASTLY SIGHT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 130, 5 June 1933, Page 7

GHASTLY SIGHT.

FRENCH TRAIN WRECK. Driver's Carelessness Leads to Fearful Smash. THREE week-end disasters. (United r.A.-Elcctric Telegraph—Copyright) (Received 11.30 a.m.) PARIS, June 4. ■\VTien the stationmaster at Angers handed the enginedrivcr of the Croisic express sealed instructions to reduce the customary 60 to IS miles an hour on the freight track to which the train had been relegated owing to an earlier derailment blocking the "fast" track, the enginedrivcr thought it was a routine message and did not open it because he was behind time. A minute after passing the warning signal the engine fouled the points at s°a.m. and leaped the track. The driver and the fireman were hurled 30 feet unscathed. The tender rolled down the embankment. A first-class coach was thrown across the track, seven crowded carriages telescoping into it and becoming a chaotic pile* of wreckage packed with dead, dying and injured. A fire brigade, doctors and nurses spent hours in rescue work. One doctor held a woman's head on his lap in order to conceal the sight of the mutilated bodies of her mother and sister at her feet. The injured number 100. The police have detained the enginedrivcr. The Lyons express on the same line crashed into a local train at St. Pierre Dcs Corps three hours earlier, injuring 26 passengers. Fourteen people were killed and 70 others were injured as the result of the derailment of the Paris-Mantes express. The disaster occurred near Mantes, which is 30 miles north-west of the capital.