EIGHT KILLED.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20425, 2 October 1934, Page 1

EIGHT KILLED.

French Holiday Express Derailed. CRASH INTO GOODS TRAIN. j (Special lo the - Star.”) PARIS, August 21. I , Several of the fifty passengers who were injured in the recent railway acci- ! dent at Avignon, in which eight passengers were killed, are not to j i survive. As far as is known, no Eng- j | lish people were among them. The accident occurred when the Geneva-Ventimiglia express was de- , railed 200 yards from the station at Avignon. The locomotive passed oyer , some points, but the two carriages immediately behind it, one a mail coach ; and the other a first-class carriage, went off the rails, crashing into a goods train standing on the next track. Both carriages were demolished. The locomotive then jumped the ! rails and hurtled into the station platj form, which, fortunately, was empty. I | The ten remaining coaches turned over, [ some of them being thrown the width . of three or four railway lines away by the force of the impact. , The train was packed with holiday ; 1 travellers on their way to the Riviera, 1 ar: overflow of third-class passengers , having been allowed to occupy the first and second-class carriages, which received the greatest damage. Hundreds were pinned underneath the wreckage. Red-hot ashes from the overturned locomotive started a fire, which spread . and added to the horror of the accit dent, but the fire was quickly put out I by firemen, who were among the first t to arrive at the scene. Within ten „ minutes a large force of police and troops from the Avignon garrison waa . also there and engaged in rescue work. Alleged Excessive Speed. ' j A preliminary investigation shows, it is alleged, that the train was travelling 1 at least thirty miles an hour, and that • the brakes were net functioning pro--5 ! perlv. One of the passengers, M. Yernet, whose fifteen-year-old daughter was killed, and whose wife was seriously injured, described the accident. “ I - was surprised cn seeing by the lights 1 o( the station at Avignon that we were - going so last,” he said. “ When w.e ’ passed the signal post I was frighten- » , ed. J could not imagine our going through the station at such a speed. Then we crashed. j “ I had been sitting in the corridor i and was thrown some distance. There 1 i was a shower of glass and splinters of ’- 1 wood. My only thought in the dark- “ After dislodging a man who had

been killed, I managed to climb through the wreckage to the compartment where I had left my family. There I found my daughter dead and my wife gravely injured.” The speed gauge record was destroyed by the fire from the furnace.