‘I’ve never seen anything like it…there were limbs hanging out of the smashed windows’

EYEWITNESSES yesterday spoke of their horror when an express train sliced through a double-decker tour bus in Hungary, killing at least 33 German tourists.

Eight other passengers were injured in one of Hungary’s worst transport disasters. Engineer Istvan Galos said: “I’ve never seen anything like it in my life ... there were limbs hanging out of the smashed windows of the bus.”

Galos said he saw two buses approaching the rail crossing. The first bus went over the tracks while the warning lights were flashing white, he said, but the second crossed as the lights were already flashing red.

“There was an enormous crashing sound when the train hit the bus and I saw parts of the bus flying out in the air ... the train blew its whistle twice to warn the bus, but the train was not able to stop in time,” Galos said.

The passenger train was travelling at about 60mph when it struck the bus at a railroad crossing near Siofok, said the town’s police chief, Captain Tamas Hekker. The popular resort on Lake Balaton is about 60 miles from Budapest.

The impact propelled the front part of the bus about 50 yards away from the crossing while the other half burst into flames after being dragged along the tracks for 160 yards by the train, officials said.

The crash left mounds of twisted steel barely recognisable as a vehicle, including bus metal wrapped around the front of the locomotive. The front end of the bus appeared to be charred.

Hospital doctor Vilmos Olah said one of the two bus crash survivors in intensive care at the hospital died.

Olah said a similar crash between a bus and a train had occurred at the same crossing in 1980, when 24 Hungarians were killed.

“I don’t know how many people will have to die before they put a proper crossing there,” Olah said.