At least 51 dead and dozens injured after train hits truck on tracks in Taiwan

  • Video report by ITV News Reporter Ellie Pitt

At least 51 people have died and more than 100 have been injured in a train crash in Taiwan after a truck slid onto the railway tracks.

In the deadliest rail disaster the country has ever seen, on Friday afternoon a train hit the unmanned truck that had rolled onto the tracks.

Many passengers were crushed, while some survivors were forced to climb out of windows and walk along the train’s roof to safety.

The truck’s emergency brake was not properly engaged, according to the government’s disaster relief center, and the vehicle slid about 20 meters down a hillside.

Minutes later, the train’s lead car crashed into it, according to Railways Administration official Weng Hui-ping, just before the train entered a tunnel.

Passengers climbed onto the roof of the derailed trail. Credit: AP

The train, carrying more than 400 people, derailed near the Taroko Gorge scenic area on the first day of a long holiday weekend.

Many in the country use the railways to travel home for the holidays, with families and children.

“Many people were crushed under train seats in the collision. And there were other people on top of the seats. So those at the bottom were pressed and crushed and lost consciousness,” a passenger with gauze taped to her elbow told Taiwanese broadcaster EBC.

“At the beginning, they still responded when we called them. But I guess they lost consciousness afterward.”

Rescue workers near the site in Toroko Gorge in Taiwan’s eastern Hualian region Credit: National Fire Agency Department via AP

With much of the train still trapped in the tunnel, escaping passengers were forced to scale doors, windows and roofs to reach safety.

Television footage and photos posted by witnesses on the website of the official Central News Agency showed people climbing through the open door of a railcar just outside the entrance to the tunnel.

Taiwan’s last major rail crash was in October 2018, when an express train derailed while rounding a tight corner on the north-east coast, killing at least 18 people and injuring nearly 200.

In 1991, a collision in western Taiwan killed 30 people and injured 112 in the country’s deadliest train accident.