South African Train Collision Leaves Four People Dead And Hundreds Injured

This morning, two passenger trains collided during rush hour in South
Africa’s capital city Pretoria killing four people and injuring
hundreds.

Two critically injured people were airlifted from the scene of the
crash in Mountain View, northern Pretoria, spokesman Charles Mabaso told
AFP. Another 300 people were hurt, with 82 sustaining serious injuries.
 “The current fatalities stand at three, but it still might rise,” said
Mabaso.

When paramedics arrived on the scene, they found carriages from both
trains tilting half off the track. “Numerous passengers were found
either in the trains or found walking around on the scene,” Russel
Meiring, a spokesman for the ER24 emergency services, said in a
statement.  

Rail accidents are common in South Africa. A year ago, in one of the
country’s worst rail disasters, a passenger train traveling from the
southern city of Port Elizabeth to Jo’burg smashed into a lorry at a
level crossing near Kroonstad in the central Free State province and
burst into flames, killing 19 people and wounding 254. In 2016-17, 495
people were killed on the country’s railways according to the Railway
Safety Regulator an increase of eight percent on the previous year.