Seventeen people have been confirmed dead after a small tourist train derailed on a bridge near a popular resort in central Taiwan.
A helicopter crash-landed while trying to airlift the victims to hospitals, but no one was killed, authorities said.
The four-car train with about 150 passengers was coming down Ali Mountain when it slid off the tracks shortly after the locomotive crossed a small concrete bridge.
The accident's cause was not immediately known, but passengers told local media that the train seemed to be traveling too fast when it was crossing the bridge.
"The cars suddenly left the rails and fell over," one female passenger told FTV cable news."The car was filled with people. Some were standing," said the woman, who wasn't identified. "I looked at my daughter and saw her internal organs. I don't know where my daughter is now."
Officials didn't provide a breakdown of how many people were seriously injured. Passengers were taken to seven different hospitals.Li Chien-chuan, vice chairman of the Agricultural Council, said the 10 people aboard the Alouette B234 rescue helicopter survived the crash landing.
Officials with the Agricultural Council, which manages the railway, told reporters that the train, which can carry 200 passengers, wasn't overloaded. They also said the train passed its daily safety inspection before going up the mountain.
AP