Train strikes truck, injuring 17

A truck driver was in critical condition in hospital last night after a passenger train crashed into his vehicle at a level crossing in Yingko, Taipei County, yesterday morning.

The train's engineer and 15 passengers were also injured in the accident, but were released after receiving hospital treatment.

The accident paralyzed rail traffic between Taipei and southwestern Taiwan for nearly seven hours, delaying the journeys of over 20,000 passengers. Normal service was resumed at 4:50pm.

Doctors said last night that the truck driver, 33-year-old Lu Hsueh-wei (呂學偉), who arrived at En Chu Kung Hospital (恩主公醫院) in Taipei County, had emerged from a coma but had not yet regained full consciousness.

Liu Chun-ju, a spokesman for the hospital, told the Taipei Times that Lu could be suffering from delayed internal bleeding.

The other victims suffered minor head injuries as well as cuts and bruises.

The crash happened at 9:10am at the Tung Ying Li (東鶯里) crossing as the train approached Yingko Station, 300m away.

Eyewitnesses told local media that the truck appeared to have ventured onto the crossing before the vehicle in front of it had moved sufficiently ahead to enable the truck to fully clear the tracks. A preliminary police investigation supported that view and added that the driver was apparently not aware of the length of his truck.

The Taiwan Railroad Administration (TRA) said that although engineer Huang Chun-hsiung (黃純雄) saw the truck and responded by slowing the train down, the distance between the train and the truck was too short for an emergency stop to be executed.

The collision seriously damaged to the locomotive and broke the truck and flatbed into four pieces.

Wang Hsien-ping, a TRA spokes-man, told the Taipei Times yesterday that normally a siren sounds and a barrier descends at either end of a level crossing about one minute before the arrival of a train. "Everything was working normally today at Yingko," he said.

The train, Kaohsiung-bound Tzu Chiang Passenger train 1009 -- which has a maximum speed of 120kph -- left Keelung at 8am and was scheduled to reach Kaohsiung at 12:44pm.

The flatbed truck, according to local media, had been fully loaded with at least 40 tonnes of steel frames.

TRA Director-General Huang Te-Chi (黃德治) apologized for the incident at a press conference yesterday afternoon.

Other TRA officials said that the accident "might have been be prevented."

"He [Lu] failed to press the emergency alarm button located at the railroad crossing. If he had done so, there might have been enough time for the train to make an emergency stop," said Chang Ying-huei (張應輝), a TRA official.

There are emergency alarms at all level crossings. Once pressed, the alarm notifies approaching trains of emergency situations at the crossing so that the engineer may take action.

Police opened a full investigation into the accident yesterday.