Six dead in Turkish train crash

A passenger train in north-west Turkey ignored a stop signal and rammed an oncoming train, killing six people and injuring 85 others yesterday in the nation’s third deadly rail accident in as many weeks.

Rescue workers in blue and orange jumpsuits climbed through the wreckage near the village of Tavsancil in Kocaeli province, 50 miles east of Istanbul, to recover trapped and smashed bodies.

They threw mangled pieces of metal out the shattered windows and used axes and torches to cut through the wreckage.

The prime minister’s office said six people were killed in the accident and 85 people were injured.

Earlier the semi-official Anatolia news agency, quoting prosecutor Veysel Eroglu, who is investigating the accident, reported that nine people were killed in the crash. But the agency later reported the death toll at six. There was no explanation for the discrepancy.

A few bodies were still believed to be trapped inside the wreckage.

Armed troops were guarding the site.

By nightfall, rescue operations had largely ended and emergency crews were using flashlights to search inside the wreckage for any bodies.

The accident occurred after a train travelling from Ankara to Istanbul ignored a signal and failed to stop at a junction, Cemal Yaman, an local branch official of the train workers’ union told the Anatolia news agency. The train was carrying 153 passengers and nine crew members.

Deputy prime minister Abdullah Gul said, “One of the trains passed a red light. When the (engineer) noticed he tried to reduce speed but unfortunately the accident occurred.”

However, conductor Hasan Yucedag told Anatolia from his hospital bed that “the light was green for us. It suddenly turned red as we were about to cross.”

Yucedag suffered a broken arm.

The other train was travelling from Istanbul to Adapazari in north-western Turkey.

The Prime Minister’s Crisis Centre said 85 people were injured. Most of the injured were released from the hospital by nightfall.

Mahmut Yanmis, who survived the accident, told CNN-Turk television the collision occurred after his train left Tavsancil station.

“I made my way through a broken window,” said Yanmis, who had stitches on his head and scratches on his arms. ”When I went out of the car, I saw the decapitated body of a conductor trapped at the gate of the locomotive.

“I saw the passenger sitting next to me dead. Body pieces were scattered everywhere.”

The accident comes three weeks after a newly-inaugurated high-speed train from Istanbul to Ankara derailed, killing 37 people – one of the worst train accidents in Turkey.

The July 22 derailment – 60 miles from yesterday’s crash – was a major embarrassment to the government of prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who personally launched the train in June.

The government has launched three separate probes – by academics, a prosecutor and a team of foreign experts – into that accident.

Three days after the derailment, a passenger train slammed into a minibus at a western railroad crossing, killing 15 people and injuring four others.