MILAN: At least three people were killed and about 12 seriously injured after a packed Italian commuter train derailed on Thursday near the northern city of Milan.
Italian media quoted witnesses as saying that the regional train began to shake heavily as if it was travelling over rocks, before braking suddenly and derailing.
Some people were trapped for hours in the wreckage as firefighters, police and rescue workers took care of the traumatised passengers and tried to clear the carriages, one of which jack-knifed across the track after the train struck a pylon, bent almost at a right angle.
According to Italian media the three victims were women aged 39, 51 and 61.
“People were scared, they were shouting ‘my God, my god, my god’. I managed to climb out of a window after the carriage went onto its side,” John Eugaosa, a 25-year-old Nigerian living in Milan for work, said.
His trousers stained with the blood of other passengers, he was waiting to see a doctor in one of the two gymnasiums used to take care of the more than 90 people who sustained light injuries.
“Unfortunately the train was full, and if the current toll ends up staying as it is it would almost be a miracle.
The train was packed with commuters and students,” said Milan’s police commissioner Marcello Cardona.
The cause of the crash was not immediately clear.
Milan prosecutors have opened a probe, and investigators have begun questioning the driver, Italian media said.
Rescuers spent the morning searching the wreckage for victims and firefighters said a dozen people were seriously injured, including five in a life-threatening condition.
According to regional emergency services in Milan, another 100 people sustained light injuries in the incident, which took place at around 7 am near Segrate in Milan’s northeastern suburbs.
The derailment is the most serious rail accident in Italy since 23 people were killed in a high-speed head-on collision between two passenger trains in July 2016 in the southern Puglia region.
One woman told the newspaper La Repubblica that her daughter had called her on her phone to say “Mummy, help, the train is derailing” as the accident happened.
— AFP
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