TRAIN SMASH

Southland Times, Issue 22156, 26 October 1933, Page 7

TRAIN SMASH

FRENCH DISASTER LOSS OF THIRTY LIVES CARRIAGES SHATTERED CRASHED INTO BRIDGE (United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright.) Paris, October 24 It is estimated that 30 persons were killed in a derailment of the Cher-bourg-Paris express near Conches. The derailment is believed to be the result of foul play. The express was crossing a viaduct over a small river, 70 miles from Paris, when it left the rails at a high speed The engine, the tender, the guard’s van and three coaches crashed over the parapet, fell 30 feet and were shattered to matchwood. Telegraph wires were cut and the line was blocked. A message from Evreux states that at least 30 were killed and 34 seriously and 60 slightly injured. Besides the vehicles in the riverbed two carriages hung suspended from the bridge and four remained on the rails. The casualties were confined to the first two coaches where the dead and dying were thrown in confused heaps and extrication was almost impossible owing to the necessity of preventing the telescoped coaches from plunging into the riverbed.

Aeroplanes, a detachment from the Chasseur Regiment and divers from Rouen assisted in the rescues. Some were lowered roped round the waists and risked drowning. They hauled Senator Dudouit and others from the river at the point of death. Many tore sleepers from the track and battered in the sides of the coaches and made rough stretchers of the palings. A young soldier extricating a body found it was his sister. The up and down lines were blocked by the wreckage for hours and broken telegraph lines impeded communication.

Another soldier described it as a nightmare horror when a violent braking awoke him from a doze as the carriage skidded sideways on the twisted rails and stopped short of a gaping hole in the parapet through which the forepart of the train had plunged. He and a sailor companion devoted themselves to caring for an old woman in the same compartment.

The police discount the theory of foul play and ascribe the accident to the driver applying the brakes too suddenly at 65 miles an hour. It is understood that no Britishers or Americans were among the casualties.