Brakes failure blamed for commuter train tragedy

Press, 29 June 1988, Page 8

Brakes failure blamed for commuter train tragedy

NZPA-Reuter

Paris

At least 22 people died when a suburban train packed with commuters hurtled out of control and ploughed into a stationary train at one of Paris’ busiest railway stations, police and rail officials said.

Firemen searched through the night for survivors, cutting through the wreckage of two carriages completely crushed in the crash on an underground platform at the Gare de Lyon.

A top official blamed the accident on a brakes failure on the incoming train. A fire brigade spokesman, Raoul Vigier, said, “We are trying to free three injured people who survived by a miracle, trapped in the middle of the wreckage.” Twenty bodies have already been recovered. Firemen said two or three other corpses were visible, but the final toll

could be even higher because it was impossible to say how many were trapped. Onlookers reported scenes of carnage and confusion.

“We all thought it was a bomb. There was smoke everywhere and then we saw that it was a train which had crashed into another one. There were bodies cut in two,” a passenger said.

anyone else left inside were very slim. Thirteen people, most of whom had been on the stationary train, were seriously injured and 19 slightly hurt.

Mr Rouvillois blamed the crash — the worst in France since 1985, when two separate train accidents left a total of 74 dead and 200 injured — on a brakes failure on the incoming train, estimated to be travelling about 60km/h. The accident happened during the late rush hour. The train coming in from Melun, south of Paris, smashed through the back of the stationary train.

Philippe Rouvillois, president of the Stateowned S.N.C.F. railways, told reporters the three trapped survivors were being given blood tranfusions and oxygen but the chances of survival for