HEAD-ON COLLISION

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 291, 4 September 1933, Page 9

HEAD-ON COLLISION

Railway Smash in South Africa SEVEN DEAD; 9 INJURED (Received September 3, 7.15 p.m.) Bloemfontein, September 2. A tragic prelude to the fifth Rugby Test match against the Australians occurred when’ a mail train frojn Durban, conveying many visitors for the match, collided head-on with a local train in Shannon station, five miles from Bloemfontein. It is officially announced that seven were killed and nine injured, three, it is feared, fatally. A European was among those seriously injured; all the other casualties are natives or coloured people. One Indian vras killed. 1 The mail train was being drawn by two locomotives. The collision occurred during a dense fog. There were pitiful scenes as rescuers hacked away the sides of the telescoped coaches to remove the dead and injured. It was a terrible spectacle. The second engine of the mall train was lifted almost on top of the first engine, and the second, coach on top o£ the first coach. The body of a native woman was taken from the wreckage clutching an unclothed and bloodstained infant *n her arms.