A Horrifying Train Derailment : Taiwan

"It was a living hell."

"Chairs were mangled, objects were scattered all over the floor, and blood was everywhere."

"It was heartbreaking to see so many children and infants die in the accident."

Lin Chi-feng, rescue team member

"At present it is suspected because the vehicle [truck driven by a construction manager] wasn't braked properly, it slid for around 20 metres along the site access road and entered the eastern trunk line."

Feng Hui-sheng, deputy director, Taiwan Railways Administration

With much of the train still inside the tunnel, many escaping passengers had to scramble out of doors and windows and scale the sides of the train to walk along the roof in darkness to safety. (Still from Video)

 

On Friday, travellers on an eight-carriage train entering a long mountain tunnel suddenly found themselves shaken by an impact that derailed some of the carriages. Some of the carriages were crushed by an impact of the train  hitting a truck that had slipped down an embankment where construction was being carried on above the track to stabilize the mountainside. The driver of the truck, a contract supervisor of the work crew had stopped his truck to enter the construction office and evidently left the truck improperly parked.

 

The collision led to the death of 51 people, among them children. "We were asleep and then suddenly there was an intense strike and I fell down on the floor and my head was bleeding", explained a woman after rescue workers had assisted her to climb down to the tracks from her perch on a rail car. She had a head wound covered by a checkered scarf and had been in the seventh of the train cars with her husband, flipped over inside the tunnel. They had broken a window to make their escape scrambling through the twisted mesh of metal.

The Taroko Express packed with almost five hundred passengers had derailed just north of the coastal city of Hualien, while winding its way through tunnels carved out of the mountainous terrain on the east coast of Taiwan. Local families and people using a long weekend for a holiday to leave the capital Taipei to travel south for the weekend's "Tomb Sweeping" festival, a tradition born of ancestor respect were represented among the casualties. The tragedy struck when a construction truck "not parked properly", according to the Central News Agency, plunged into the path of the train from the embankment above.

Rescue workers walk next to the damaged train, which derailed in a tunnel north of Hualien. Officials initially said all passengers had been accounted for but later said there may be more bodies trapped in the mangled cars. (FTV/Reuters)

"[Emergency services] have been fully mobilized to rescue & assist the passengers & railway staff affected."

"We will continue to do everything we can to ensure their safety in the wake of this heartbreaking incident."

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen

The 24-million people of the mountainous island that is Taiwan , live for the most part in the flatlands along the northern and western coasts, where most of the island's farmland, largest cities and high-tech industries are located. Tourists from those areas travel to the lightly populated east by train, in avoidance of driving the treacherous mountain roads. It was the first of the four-day religious holiday of the Tomb Sweeping Festival when traditionally Taiwanese travel to their home towns to be with their extended families.

 

An investigation is being carried out, and the driver of the truck being questioned. Photographs show train cars within the tunnel crumpled, ripped apart by the impact. Over 150 people were injured. Many people were trapped for hours in carriages five to eight which rescue workers described as "deformed" and access to, difficult. People were reported as having been standing inside the popular train, where bookings are often difficult to obtain, leaving the carriages crowded with people. 

 

One man described his experience of feeling suddenly dizzy following a loud thud. The carriage was pitch black when he recovered consciousness. And where passengers were trapped in the crumpled carriage, desperately using their phone lights to try to help one another. An hour later he was able to walk out of the tunnel. "I've managed to get out of it, but I felt scared and didn't dare look at the scene as there are many people lying on the ground."

 

A passenger, centre, is helped to climb out of a derailed train in Hualien County in eastern Taiwan in this image made from a video released by hsnews.com.tw. (AP)