A high-speed train derailed in eastern Australia early yesterday, injuring more than 120 passengers as carriages slammed into trees and plowed through nearby fields. Medical staff said it was a miracle nobody was killed.
The train had 156 passengers and seven crew on board when it came off the tracks at 12:15am, about 400km north of Brisbane, a Queensland state police spokeswoman said on condition of anonymity.
PHOTO: EPA
Many passengers were likely sleeping when they were suddenly tossed around the carriages as they careened off the tracks.
"I was thrown against the window and the awareness of my face smashing against the window pane was the first thing I knew," said 67-year-old Patricia Ponting. "It felt as if we were going along a corrugated surface, then a couple of the kids screamed and then it just came to an abrupt halt."
The cause of the accident was not immediately known. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau immediately launched an investigation.
"The train is just a twisted wreck, it's an absolute bloody mess," a Queensland Ambulance Service spokesman said. "There are carriages on their side, bent and twisted and there are bogies [wheels] all over the place."
Some carriages almost slid onto the adjacent Bruce Highway, the major east coast road.
"The train plowed through the dirt like a bulldozer," the unnamed ambulance spokesman told reporters. "It's taken out trees, anything that was in its path has gone."
The more than 120 people hurt included 35 people being treated for major injuries and two listed in serious condition, said Dr John Scott of Queensland state's health department.
"To get away with the small number of [serious] injuries we have, I think is incredible," Scott told Australian television.
The train was traveling from Brisbane to the northern town of Cairns when it crashed and was likely carrying some tourists.
Seven of the nine carriages plowed off the tracks, the police spokeswoman said.
Queensland Rail, the company that operates the train, said two drivers and a crew member were among the injured. The remainder were passengers.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RIVALRY: ‘We know that these are merely symbolic investigations initiated by China, which is in fact the world’s most profligate disrupter of supply chains,’ a US official said China has started a pair of investigations into US trade practices, retaliating against similar probes by US President Donald Trump’s administration as the superpowers stake out positions before an expected presidential summit in May. The move, announced by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Friday, is a direct mirror of steps Trump took to revive his tariff agenda after the US Supreme Court last month struck down some of his duties. “China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to these actions,” a ministry spokesperson said in a statement, referring to the so-called Section 301 investigations initiated on March 11.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
RSS