A man has survived clinging to the outside of an Austrian high-speed train, Austria’s state railway said on Sunday, reportedly after it left while he was having a cigarette break.
The man late on Saturday grabbed onto the outside of the train at St Poelten, west of Vienna, and was later taken onboard after the train performed an emergency stop, railways spokesman Herbert Hofer said.
“It is irresponsible, this kind of thing usually ends up with someone dying,” he said.
Photo: Reuters
“And you’re not just putting yourself in danger, if you end up under the train there’s rescuers, there’s police, fire service that come,” he added.
The train was on its way from Zurich, Switzerland, to the Austrian capital and left St Poelten on time, but arrived in Vienna with a seven-minute delay, Hofer said.
Citing a passenger onboard, Austrian tabloid Heute said the man jumped into the space between two carriages after the train began to set off from a planned stop in St Poelten.
The man had taken advantage of being at a station to smoke a cigarette on the platform, it reported.
The man soon began to bang on windows to attract attention, resulting in the train’s conductor activating the emergency brake before train crew took the man aboard, it reported.
“The conductor really had a very big go at him,” the passenger told Heute.
The man is a 24-year-old Algerian and was led away by police after the train arrived in Vienna’s Meidling station, Heute reported.
Hofer said he could not comment on the man’s background ahead of further investigations.
In January, a 40-year-old Hungarian man survived clinging to a German high-speed train for 32km, likewise after it set off before he had finished his cigarette.
DISASTER: The Bangladesh Meteorological Department recorded a magnitude 5.7 and tremors reached as far as Kolkata, India, more than 300km away from the epicenter A powerful earthquake struck Bangladesh yesterday outside the crowded capital, Dhaka, killing at least five people and injuring about a hundred, the government said. The magnitude 5.5 quake struck at 10:38am near Narsingdi, Bangladesh, about 33km from Dhaka, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. The earthquake sparked fear and chaos with many in the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million people at home on their day off. AFP reporters in Dhaka said they saw people weeping in the streets while others appeared shocked. Bangladesh Interim Leader Muhammad Yunus expressed his “deep shock and sorrow over the news of casualties in various districts.” At least five people,
ON THE LAM: The Brazilian Supreme Court said that the former president tried to burn his ankle monitor off as part of an attempt to orchestrate his escape from Brazil Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro — under house arrest while he appeals a conviction for a foiled coup attempt — was taken into custody on Saturday after the Brazilian Supreme Court deemed him a high flight risk. The court said the far-right firebrand — who was sentenced to 27 years in prison over a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 elections — had attempted to disable his ankle monitor to flee. Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes said Bolsonaro’s detention was a preventive measure as final appeals play out. In a video made
It is one of the world’s most famous unsolved codes whose answer could sell for a fortune — but two US friends say they have already found the secret hidden by Kryptos. The S-shaped copper sculpture has baffled cryptography enthusiasts since its 1990 installation on the grounds of the CIA headquarters in Virginia, with three of its four messages deciphered so far. Yet K4, the final passage, has kept codebreakers scratching their heads. Sculptor Jim Sanborn, 80, has been so overwhelmed by guesses that he started charging US$50 for each response. Sanborn in August announced he would auction the 97-character solution to K4
SHOW OF FORCE: The US has held nine multilateral drills near Guam in the past four months, which Australia said was important to deter coercion in the region Five Chinese research vessels, including ships used for space and missile tracking and underwater mapping, were active in the northwest Pacific last month, as the US stepped up military exercises, data compiled by a Guam-based group shows. Rapid militarization in the northern Pacific gets insufficient attention, the Pacific Center for Island Security said, adding that it makes island populations a potential target in any great-power conflict. “If you look at the number of US and bilateral and multilateral exercises, there is a lot of activity,” Leland Bettis, the director of the group that seeks to flag regional security risks, said in an