Dutch rail crash: One dead after passenger train hits crane and derails
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Loading... - Guzman Santiago
- 04 Apr 2023
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One person was killed and 19 passengers taken to hospital when an inter-city train collided with a crane and derailed outside The Hague.
Emergency services said the train was carrying about 50 people when the train derailed near the village of Voorschoten.
The accident was the worst on Dutch railways for years and King Willem-Alexander later visited the scene.
Residents looked after some of the passengers with minor injuries.
The crash happened at about 03:25 local time (01:25 GMT) on Tuesday, tearing apart the NS passenger train and bringing down one of the overhead power lines.
A goods train also collided with the crane, which was being used for repairs to two of four railway tracks near Voorschoten.
The person who died had been working for construction company BAM, a spokesperson confirmed. Some of the 19 passengers were in a serious condition. The passenger train driver was also hurt, but the goods train driver was safe.
One of the passenger carriages careered down the grassy slope, while another remained on the tracks. Most of the double-decker inter-city train's lower windows were shattered.
"We heard a bang first and then later, a much more intense one," one local resident told the AFP news agency. "Then we heard people screaming. It was not good."
"The crane was there to be used for maintenance," said John Voppen, head of the government network body ProRail. He said he was 100% sure the crane was not on the tracks being used by the trains, but was unable to say how the two trains collided with it. Read More…
