Trains Collide In Cuba

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28154, 18 December 1956, Page 15

Trains Collide In Cuba

(Rec. 7 p.m.) TAGUASCO (Cuba), December 16. Two speeding passenger trains collided head-on near this central Cuban provincial town early today. Nineteen persons were killed and 18 injured. Officials suspected sabotage. A wrongly-set switch —believed to have been moved by anti-Government saboteurs—threw an express train headed for Havana into the path of a passenger train on the way to the eastern provincial capital of Santiago. The wreck occurred between Taguasco and Jatibonico. All of the victims were believed to be Cuban. The locomotive of the Santiagobound train smashed into the first carriage of the express, causing most of the casualties. Authorities ordered an investigation to determine whether the trains were wrecked deliberately by enemies of President Fulgencio Batista.

Dr. Fawzi’s statement said Egypt was against the employment of the British and French workmen “in view of their own safety.’’ A spokesman read the statement to reporters as Dr. Fawzi paid his second call in two days on the United Nations Secretary-General (Mr Dag Hammarskjold). The spokesman said he assumed Dr. Fawzi had laid the contents of the statement before Mr Hammarskjold. Asked who Egypt would like to have operate the British-French salvage craft, the spokesman replied: “Technicians under United Nations sponsorship.” Replying to a suggestion that this might lead to difficulties, he said: “Any trained crew could work this equipment.’ ’ Dr. Fawzi’s statement said that it was in the interests of the British - French technicians’ own safety that the Egyptian Government was not able to agree to their employment. The statement said that the technicians would be working in the area which had “the biggest share of the ravages of the recent aggression against Egypt.” The Egyptian Government was ready to approve the use of all equipment and salvage ships required for the clearance job, “irrespective of origin and without excluding British equipment and salvage ships,” the statement added.