17 hurt in Switzerland train collision
04:56AM Sat 12 Jan, 2013
[caption id="attachment_21012" align="aligncenter" width="580"] wiss firefighters stand beside a demolished RE 440 coach after a train crash in the northern Swiss town of Neuhausen am Rheinfall on Thursday. (Reuters)[/caption]
GENEVA: Two passenger trains collided at a train station in northern Switzerland during morning rush hour yesterday, injuring at least 17 people, police said.
“At least 17 people have been injured. Nine have been hospitalized,” Anja Schudela, a local police spokeswoman in the canton of Schaffhouse, told the Blick daily’s online edition.
Police said that none of the injuries were serious, according to local daily Schaffhauser Nachrichten.
Initial reports said up to 30 people were injured in the collision.
The crash occurred around 7:30 a.m. (0630 GMT) when one crowded train rammed into the side of another at the Neuhausen-am-Rheinfall train station near the German border, the rail company said.
Some 220 rescue workers had been mobilized, and after about two hours all the passengers had been evacuated, police told reporters.
An engine of one of the trains, a double-decker that had been heading for Winterthour in the canton of Zurich, had derailed when it was hit by a regional train.
A rescue train that was sent in to help put it back on the track also carried rescue personnel to help with any injuries, a spokesman of the company Jean Philippe Schmidt told AFP.
The cause of the crash remained unclear, he said.
“The train hit the emergency breaks and everyone was thrown out of their seats,” one of the passengers told a news website.
“One person was bleeding heavily from the head,” he added.
Another passenger told the online paper that he had seen “an old lady lying unconscious on the ground who was bleeding a lot.”
The train station was closed for the remainder of the day, and rail traffic between Schaffhouse and Dachsen in Zurich, as well as between Schaffhouse and Jestetten in Germany has been halted, according to the company.
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
wiss firefighters stand beside a demolished RE 440 coach after a train crash in the northern Swiss town of Neuhausen am Rheinfall on Thursday. (Reuters)[/caption]
GENEVA: Two passenger trains collided at a train station in northern Switzerland during morning rush hour yesterday, injuring at least 17 people, police said.
“At least 17 people have been injured. Nine have been hospitalized,” Anja Schudela, a local police spokeswoman in the canton of Schaffhouse, told the Blick daily’s online edition.
Police said that none of the injuries were serious, according to local daily Schaffhauser Nachrichten.
Initial reports said up to 30 people were injured in the collision.
The crash occurred around 7:30 a.m. (0630 GMT) when one crowded train rammed into the side of another at the Neuhausen-am-Rheinfall train station near the German border, the rail company said.
Some 220 rescue workers had been mobilized, and after about two hours all the passengers had been evacuated, police told reporters.
An engine of one of the trains, a double-decker that had been heading for Winterthour in the canton of Zurich, had derailed when it was hit by a regional train.
A rescue train that was sent in to help put it back on the track also carried rescue personnel to help with any injuries, a spokesman of the company Jean Philippe Schmidt told AFP.
The cause of the crash remained unclear, he said.
“The train hit the emergency breaks and everyone was thrown out of their seats,” one of the passengers told a news website.
“One person was bleeding heavily from the head,” he added.
Another passenger told the online paper that he had seen “an old lady lying unconscious on the ground who was bleeding a lot.”
The train station was closed for the remainder of the day, and rail traffic between Schaffhouse and Dachsen in Zurich, as well as between Schaffhouse and Jestetten in Germany has been halted, according to the company.
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
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