ARGENTINE DISASTER Stationmaster Arrested

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32213, 4 February 1970, Page 19

ARGENTINE DISASTER Stationmaster Arrested

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter—Copyright) BUENOS AIRES, February 3. Police have arrested the stationmaster and signal box attendant of the wayside station where an express ploughed into a crowded stationary train on Sunday evening, killing an estimated 250 people.

Police said that they were also looking for a third member of the station staff at Benavides, 22 miles northwest of Buenos Aires.

He disappeared shortly after the express smashed into the local train which was stationary and crammed with 1100 week-end trippers. Thirty-six hours after the disaster it was still > not clear today how high the death toll will be. A railway spokesman said last night that the exact number of dead might never be known because so many of the bodies were mutilated and dismembered beyond recognition. The spokesman added that about 150 survivors of the crash were still in hospital, but only a few were on the critical list. No official figures have been released but the State Secretary for Public Health, Mr Ezequiel Holmberg, last night estimated a toll of 250. A radio interviewer told him that his station had estimated from “very reliable sources” that the known dead amounted to 236 and might reach 250 when rescue was completed. Mr Holmberg said “ I can’t give you an exact figure but I think that your estimate is fairly accurate.” Argentina was observing a day of mourning today for the victims of the crash, one of the world’s worst railway disasters.

The area round the accident site was put under martial law last night to discourage looting. Several people have been caught stealing the possessions of victims. The worst train wreck was at Modane, France, where a passenger train derailment killed 543 persons on December 12, 1917, the Associated Press reported