Cape Town train crashes through barrier, injures 29

A packed passenger train crashed through a barrier and ploughed into a wall today, injuring 29 people in Cape Town, South Africa.

Witnesses said the train carrying residents to work from the city’s northern outskirts smashed through a concrete and metal barrier separating the tracks from a crowded pedestrian walkway at the main railway station.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known.

The woman train driver was among the injured and was rushed to hospital with neck and pelvic injuries, police said.

Her cabin was lifted about 6ft off the ground by rubble from the destroyed barrier. The rest of the train remained on the tracks.

Emergency personnel treated some of the victims for shock and took others with minor injuries to hospital.

In January, a passenger train collided with a freight train and derailed outside Cape Town, killing 10 in what officials described as the worst rail accident in the Western Cape in 20 years.