A high-speed train traveling from London to Scotland derailed in northwestern England, sending carriages slipping down an embankment, leaving passengers trapped for hours and killing at least one person, officials said.
The Glasgow-bound Virgin train derailed on Friday night near Lambrigg in Cumbria, 435km northwest of London, after reportedly hitting an obstruction in the rain, at 8:10pm.
A Royal Lancaster Infirmary spokeswoman confirmed early yesterday that one of the hospital's patients had died of injuries sustained in the crash. Cumbria Police Detective Superintendent Jon Rush identified her only as an elderly woman, adding that five others were in serious condition.
Cumbria Ambulance Service spokeswoman Claudine Shacklock said rescue workers believed no one was left in the nine-car train. She said at least 77 people were injured.
Officials have accounted for all 120 passengers and staff who were on the train at the time of the accident, Rush told reporters.
Virgin Trains spokesman Lee West told Sky News that the cause of the accident was unknown.
The company said the train was traveling at 153kph at the time of the derailment. Authorities were investigating.
Firefighters in yellow suits searched overturned train carriages tangled in downed power lines. The red roof of one carriage had been torn off in the accident, another was left hanging over the embankment's edge.
Shacklock said all of the train's nine carriages had derailed, but the fallen power lines had prevented rescue officials from being able to immediately help people out of the cars.
Twelve ambulances and five fire trucks responded to the scene, and the Royal Air Force dispatched three Sea King helicopters and two mountain rescue teams. The military helicopters, along with one police helicopter, were sent to transport the injured to hospitals.
BBC executive Caroline Thompson, who was on the train, told the BBC that the train appeared to hit something and lurched from side to side "in a very dramatic way."
Passenger Ruth Colton told the BBC she was reading a book when the journey became bumpy, like the train was being battered by heavy winds, "as if we were on a plane," before derailing.
She said the train flipped over, and items such as bottles and bags were "flying everywhere."
Vanessa Robinson, 25, from Perth, Australia, said she was thrown from the train through a smashed window when her carriage rolled upside down.
"I heard a sudden thump, I thought the train was going to catch fire and I thought I was going to die. I felt a bump which threw me against the wall of the carriage," said Robinson, who was traveling to Glasgow on holiday.
The train involved was a Pendolino train, which has a special tilting mechanism that enables it to reach speeds of 200kph.
The area where the train derailed on Friday has seen two accidents on its railway lines in the past four years.
Rail safety has been a major problem in Britain in recent years. One of the most serious accidents occurred in October 1999, when a train heading out of London's Paddington station went through a red light and crashed into an incoming high-speed train, killing 31 people. Around 400 people were injured in the accident, which was Britain's worst rail crash in 25 years.
RSS