63 hurt, one seriously, as packed train crashes in Israel

A train packed with hundreds of passengers hit a pickup truck in central Israel today, causing a locomotive and three carriages to overturn, and injuring 63 people.

Rescue officials said one person was hurt seriously, three were hurt moderately, and the rest slightly. Five people were trapped inside the overturned cars, and by 2pm (12 noon), emergency services had freed two of them.

Two of the three who were still pinned down did not respond to rescue personnel’s calls, police said.

One woman told Army Radio that her trapped husband called her twice on his mobile phone to say he could see other, seriously injured people pinned down in the same carriage.

Twisted metal, downed trees and tipped train carriages were scattered on top of and beside the tracks. One of the derailed cars came to rest on top of another carriage, and the crushed pickup truck stood several yards away from the tracks.

Rescue teams rushed into the carriages to evacuate the wounded, some of whom were treated under eucalyptus trees flanking the tracks.

Police said the truck had stopped at the closed train crossing, but was pushed onto the tracks by another vehicle that ploughed into it from behind. The driver escaped before the train struck, and phoning a number on the barrier, tried to alert Israel Railways to the vehicle on the tracks, but wasn’t able to avert the train crash, media reported.

Michah Sher, a spokesman for Israel Railways, said 200 passengers were on the 12-14-carriage train.

There were conflicting reports on whether the truck had tried to cross a barrier that was down.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the barrier was down at the time of the accident, but a witness in a passenger car who identified herself only as Miri told Israel Radio that the gate was up.