Eight killed in Brazil train crash

Rescue workers today struggled to clear the wreckage from tracks where two trains collided killing eight and injured more than 100 people a day earlier.

The accident occurred after a train carrying some 800 commuters slammed into an empty train yesterday in Nova Iguacu, a poor city in the greater Rio de Janeiro area, officials said.

“One of the trains was manoeuvring out there on the tracks and the other one came slamming into it, boom! It was like dynamite,” said Anderson Cleiton, a 25-year-old civil engineer who said he witnessed the crash.

The commuter train was travelling at nearly 60mph when it slammed into the rear end of an empty six-car train manoeuvring slowly from one track to another, the Supervia company that runs the train said.

Some passengers aboard the commuter train had to be freed by rescue workers using blow torches to cut through the twisted wreckage. The collision, about 200 yards from the station, killed eight people, said Pedro Machado, commander-general of the Rio de Janeiro Fire Department.

Firefighters said 101 people were injured, about 20 of them seriously.