Monday, February 15, 2010

Train crash belgium

Belgium: Many Dead in Commuter Train CrashAPFebruary 15, 2010: 1:00 PMYves Logghe / AP(BRUSSELS) - Two commuter trains collided head-on at rush hour in a Brussels suburb Monday, killing as many as 25 people, Belgian rail officials said. Other officials said the death toll was lower.Belgian National Railways told the VRT radio network that 25 people had died. The suburb's mayor said the death toll was 20. Lodewijk De Witte, governor of the province of Flemish Brabant, told VRT that 10 people were killed.The trains collided in light snow just outside of the station at Buizingen around 8:30 a.m. (0730GMT).The force of the collision smashed one train deep into the front of the other, peeling back the metal sides. The trains tipped high into the air and broke overhead power lines."It was a nightmare," Christian Wampach, 47, who was in the third car of a Brussels-bound train, told The Associated Press after his head was bandaged at a sports complex where less serious injuries were treated."We were thrown about for about 15 seconds. There were a number of people injured in my car but I think all the dead were in the first car," he said.Photos from the scene showed rescuers pulling the wounded from a car that appeared to have tipped onto its side. Other emergency officials rushed victims on stretchers along the tracks."When we came out we saw dead bodies lying next to the tracks, some mutilated," said Patricia Lallemand, 40, who was in the same car as Wampach, and was uninjured.