Turkey train crash: Several killed in high speed train collision

Editor | December 13, 2018 | Middle East | No Comments

At least seven people have been killed and scores injured in a crash involving a high speed train in Ankara, according to a Turkish official.

Ankara Governor Vasip Sahin told reporters in televised remarks that “43 people were injured and unfortunately four of our citizens were found dead”, as the fast train was on its way to the central province of Konya.

Sahin said the high speed train had crashed into a locomotive that carries out track inspections.

The governor added that search and rescue efforts continued as “technical investigations” were under way to find out exactly what caused the crash in Yenimahalle district.

Video footage showed emergency workers at the scene, working to rescue people from carriages trapped beneath the mangled metal wreckage of an overpass at the Marsandiz train station, to the west of Ankara.

It was not clear at what speed the trains were travelling when the crash occurred.

The accident happened at a station where the Ankara-Konya train does not stop.

In July, 10 people were killed and more than 70 injured when most of a passenger train derailed in northwestern Turkey, after torrential rains caused part of the rail tracks to collapse. Last month, 15 people were injured when a passenger train collided with a freight train in Turkey’s central province of Sivas Konya, some 260 kilometres southwest of Ankara.