According to the official Twitter account of the United Daily News, Taiwan Railway held a press conference at 7 p.m. on April 2 to revise the death toll, which now totals 51 people, including the driver and assistant driver, and the remaining 49 are passengers.
Taiwan’s “Taiwan Railway” an early morning from Taipei woods to Taitung “Taroko No. 408” train, around 9:00 a.m. in Taiwan’s eastern Hualien County, Clearwater Tunnel derailment, because the carriage violently hit the tunnel wall, according to Taiwan’s official media Central News Agency reports, so far At least 51 people are known to have died and more than 100 were sent to hospital for emergency treatment. All passengers have now been released from the cars.
According to information provided by Taiwan’s Ministry of Transportation and Communications “Taiwan Railway Administration” (TRA), the cause of the serious traffic accident is “suspected” to be a construction truck operating near the Ziqiang Tunnel falling down a hillside and hitting a passing train, causing the train to derail. Some of the carriages hit the tunnel wall, causing them to twist and turn severely.
Hualien County Police Chief Cai Dingxian told the Central News Agency that the preliminary judgment was that there was a tunnel project being outsourced by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, which was suspected of not pulling the hand brake, causing the vehicle to slide off and hit the train. The initial judgment is that the point of impact is at the front of the 8th car, and there was no driving in the engineering car at the time of the incident.
Some passengers tried to escape from the top of the train
The local Hualien Facebook club, “Hualien Hometown Association”, has many people providing photos of their escape from the scene, and people are reminding each other not to go to the accident site and to avoid the nearby Suhua Highway to avoid traffic difficulties for the search and rescue team.
A Hualien citizen, Mr. Zhang, told BBC Chinese that after the accident, he rushed to the scene to pick up his friend. The friend said to Mr. Zhang that everyone was resting when the incident happened and he was in the third carriage. Suddenly it felt like the train didn’t slow down and came to an emergency stop after hitting something directly, and everyone was awakened.
Lightly injured passengers with their own luggage efforts to get out of the tunnel
The friend out of the carriage, there are suspected of seeing the wreckage of the truck vehicle next to the tracks, but fortunately the friend and passengers in the same carriage did not have too much injury, but to be seriously frightened, the friend said that currently can not be interviewed.
At present, there have been dozens of people sent to the neighboring hospital emergency, the situation is serious.
As it is the Ching Ming Festival holiday in Taiwan, the train is full of passengers. After the news broke out, the whole Taiwan is very concerned. Currently, Taiwan’s Minister of Transportation as well as the Minister of the Interior are rushing from Taipei to Hualien to understand the situation and asking the military of the Republic of China to join in the rescue.
In addition, the integrated French broadcaster Chinese news, the cause of the accident is the Taiwan Railway train hit a large freight truck at high speed.
Taiwan Railways had the most serious crash in half a century at 9:00 this morning. A Taroko train traveling from north to south along the Pacific coast, outside the north entrance of the “Da Qing Shui Tunnel” in Hualien County, hit a large truck of lifting cargo sliding down the right side slope of about 20 meters to the track at high speed, and then rushed into the tunnel, hitting the tunnel wall strongly, causing serious casualties.
According to the preliminary understanding, the main cause of the accident is that there is a slope road above the side slope of the railway track, the crane truck parked on the slope road, the driver is suspected to leave without pulling the hand brake, so that the truck slid and fell onto the track below, and was hit head-on by the 125 km/h Taroko train, resulting in a tragic accident.
After the collision, the streamlined front end of the train was severely broken, dragging the whole train into the tunnel and then hitting the tunnel wall at high speed, causing each carriage to derail, tip over, hit the horizontal, and break the carriage, resulting in serious casualties. Finally, the first six carriages stopped inside the tunnel, and the last two remained outside the north entrance of the tunnel. The carriages inside the tunnel were so badly crushed and deformed that they needed to be rescued by sabotage equipment, and the deaths and injuries were very serious.
This 408th Taroko train, with about 350 passengers on board, plus station tickets, the whole train was nearly 500 people. Hualien County, Yilan County and New Taipei City all sent rescue teams to support the rescue.
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen requested in a Facebook post that, first, all units be fully engaged in rescue; second, the Ministry of Health and Welfare start a large number of injured patients emergency medical care mechanism; third, the Ministry of Transportation and Taiwan Railway actively respond to follow-up traffic dispatch; fourth, the Transportation Safety Board strictly conduct accident investigation, be sure to completely clarify the cause of the accident.
Taiwan’s Minister of Transportation Lin Chia-Lung issued a statement apologizing to all walks of life for the lack of effort. Executive President Su Tseng-chang expressed his deepest apologies to the families of the victims and passengers, and also expressed regret for the accident.
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