Rail crash may have killed 50

Press, 22 August 1979, Page 8

Rail crash may have killed 50

NZPA-Reuter Bangkok About 50 people were feared to have been killed, and 185 injured, in a train crash yesterday in the city of Thonwria just across the Chao Phrya River from Bangkok. The police said they had already found 39 bodies at the scene of the crash, a collision involving a passenger train and a freight train at Talingchan station. Eight other passengers had died in hospital, railway officials said. Rescue teams were trying to remove other bodies trapped under the derailed carriages of the passenger train. Many of the passengers, coming from Ratchburi province, south-west of Bangkok, were fruit-and-vegetable vendors bringing their produce to the capital. Many schoolchildren were also among the dead and injured, officials said. The tracks were strewn with scattered foodstuffs, schoolbags, and schoolbooks. Police and railway officials said the disaster had occurred when the passenger train from Ratchaburi was pulling into the station, and the freight train, carrying gasoline and cement, was moving out. They said the freight train had collided with the tail of the passenger train, and the impact flung five passenger carriages off the rails. Three carriages of the freight train were also derailed. About 185 injured people were being treated in hospitals. Officials described 60 as being badly injured.