TANZANIA: At least 200 people were killed yesterday when a passenger and freight trains collided in central Tanzania, hospital officials said.
"At least 200 people are dead but we fear there could be more," Mr John Mtimbwa, the regional medical officer in the Tanzanian administrative capital Dodoma, said.
Witnesses said hundreds more were injured when the trains collided between Igandu and Msagali, some 100 km south-east of Dodoma and 400 km west of Tanzania's main city and commercial capital Dar-es-Salaam.
"I counted 100 bodies lying on the ground next to the wreckage," said Daniel Musangya, a journalist working for African Rural Press in Action.
"Other bodies are trapped beneath the overturned cabins. The badly injured so far are about 800." Mr Isaac Mwakajila, assistant director-general of Tanzanian Railway Corporation, said the train was climbing a steep hill when it experienced mechanical problems and rolled backwards on the tracks towards an approaching cargo train.
The crash occurred at about 8.30 a.m. (local time).
"The train went off the railway tracks backwards and smashed into another train behind it going in the same direction. It had 22 cabins and 21 of them fell off the rail tracks," he said, adding that the train was carrying about 1,000 passengers.
One survivor, Mr John Maganga (32), said the train which was travelling from Dar-es-Salaam to the north-western town of Kigoma, was moving very fast as it rolled backwards.
"The driver left the engine and ran into the cabins telling people to close the windows and shouting that the train was out of control," he said. - (Reuters)