At least seven people have been killed and scores injured in a crash involving a high-speed train in Ankara, according to a Turkish official.
Ankara Governor Vasip Sahin told reporters in televised remarks that “43 people were injured and unfortunately seven of our citizens were found dead”, as the fast train was on its way to the central province of Konya.
Sahin said the high-speed train had crashed into a locomotive that carries out track inspections.
The governor added that search and rescue efforts continued as “technical investigations” were under way to find out exactly what caused the crash in Yenimahalle district.
Video footage showed emergency workers at the scene, working to rescue people from carriages trapped beneath the mangled metal wreckage of an overpass at the Marsandiz train station, to the west of Ankara.
It was not clear at what speed the trains were travelling when the crash occurred.
The accident happened at a station where the Ankara-Konya train does not stop.
Turkey has seen several other train accidents in recent times. In July, 10 people were killed and more than 70 injured when most of a passenger train derailed in the country’s northwest, after torrential rains caused part of the rail tracks to collapse.
Last month, 15 people were injured when a passenger train collided with a freight train in the central province of Sivas Konya, about 260km southwest of Ankara.
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| The train was travelling between the capital, Ankara, and the central province of Konya [EPA] |
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| Rescue workers searched the wreckage after the crash in Ankara [Tumay Berkin/Reuters] |
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| The accident occurred at a station where the Ankara-Konya train does not stop [Mehmet Ali Özcan/Anadolou] |
SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies
