Turkish govt ignored warnings over disaster train

The Turkish government was under fire today for ignoring warnings about a new express train that derailed in northwestern Turkey killing 36 people and injuring 81 in one of the country’s worst train disasters.

As workers began clearing the debris from the mangled tracks, union leaders, opposition politicians and newspapers said the government neglected warnings that its showcase train was too fast for Turkey’s antiquated railroad tracks.

“Serial murder,” the daily Hurriyet newspaper said. “Express massacre,” was the headline in Sabah.

“They died for the sake of a show,” wrote Milliyet.

At least four carriages overturned last night near the small, rural village of Mekece, about halfway through its journey from Istanbul to Ankara.

At daybreak today, a crane lifted one of the flipped carriages and loaded it on to a freighter train as railroad workers began repairing the tracks.

Police detained the train’s conductor and his assistant for questioning.

The cause of the derailment was not clear, but government officials ruled out sabotage. The disaster was a major embarrassment for the government, which dismissed concerns raised about the high-speed train before it was inaugurated last month.

“In any other country a government that acts so irresponsibly would have long resigned,” opposition leader Deniz Baykal said.

Yalcin Bayer, a columnist in Hurriyet newspaper, called for Transport Minister Binali Yildirim’s resignation.

The new trains were inaugurated last month in a ceremony in which Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan wore a station master’s cap, blew a whistle and then hopped on the train.

Erdogan cancelled a trip to Bosnia and travelled to the disaster area by helicopter, where he faced angry survivors.

“Prime Minister hear me! My husband is dead, he should never have ridden on that train,” a woman at a hospital shouted at Erdogan.

The government, however, has a huge majority in parliament and is still very popular.

Experts had called on the government to modernise the rail infrastructure before allowing the trains to travel. Aydin Erel, professor of engineering at Istanbul’s Yildiz Technical University, said he had warned the government as recently as July 14 that the tracks were not up to standard.

“Our infrastructure was not suitable for such speed,” Erel said. “Our warnings were ignored.”

The state-run rail authority rejected the criticism and insisted that the lines were appropriate.

“The train was a little fast going around the curves,” said injured passenger Namik Kemal Ozden, lying in his hospital bed with his face bandaged. “There were vibrations. My cousin was sitting next to me, we hugged each other. The windows broke and we fell to one side. We could only understand what happened once we got out.”

Bodies lay near the tracks as people searched the overturned cars looking for survivors late yesterday. Darkness hampered rescue operations, with soldiers searching the wreckage and treating the injured by flashlight.

There were conflicting reports of casualties, with the government crisis centre, Health Ministry and Transportation Ministry earlier saying that between 128 and 139 people were killed. The ministries lowered the toll to 36 without an official explanation.

Deputy Prime Minister Abdullatif Sener refused to explain the discrepancy, saying authorities were looking into it. He also rejected calls for the transport minister’s resignation saying it was too early to reach a conclusion.

The dead included a deputy governor of the nearby town of Yalova, an Austrian and his Turkish-born wife and three Jordanians, reports and officials said.

A group uniting transportation trade unions and engineering associations said it held the government responsible for the crash and suggested that the death toll could be higher than the one announced by the government.

“The political understanding which puts political gains before human lives still prevails in Turkey,” Fehmi Kutan, leader of the United Transport Workers Union and spokesman for the group, said at a news conference.