Hundreds injured in Buenos Aires train crash
22/02/2012 - 14:01
A packed train slammed into a barrier at a Buenos Aires station today, injuring at least 340 morning commuters.
Argentina’s transportation secretary said: “There are people still trapped, people alive, and there may have been fatalities. We don’t know if there are dead people.”
The commuter train hit the barrier at the end of the platform at about 12mph, smashing the front of the engine and crunching the leading cars behind it.
Most damaged was the first car, where passengers make space for bicycles. Survivors told a TV channel that many people were injured in a jumble of metal and glass.
Passengers said windows exploded as the tops of train cars separated from their floors.
The trains are usually packed with people standing between the seats, and many were thrown into each other and to the floor by the force of the hard stop.
Many people suffered bruises, and many with lesser injuries were waiting for attention on the Once station’s platforms as helicopters and more than a dozen ambulances took the most seriously injured to nearby hospitals.
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