TRAIN DISASTER

Hokitika Guardian, 13 April 1928, Page 2

TRAIN DISASTER

( United Press Association. —liy Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) PARIS, April 11. The latest reports states that sixteen were killed and thirty-five injured, many cri tea I ly, when a collision occurred just outside the Care Du Nord. There were no British among the casualties. The express for Amiens had just left the station and was gathering speed, when a local train was switched over on to the same line, and the two met in a head on collision at twenty-five

miles per hour. The crash was heard a mile distant, throwing the crowded station into immediate panic. People rushed hither and thither, endeavouring to reach the scene, while the screams of those injured in the collision rose above the noise of escaping steam. Officials vainly endeavoured to restore order, hut soon the wildly-excit-ed crowd was augmented by those running from the streets to investigate. The news spread throughout Paris and thousands raced to the station in an endeavour to learn the details The majority of those aboard the local train were city workers returning from lunch at their suburban homes. The driver of the Amiens train has been arrested for passing a danger signal, hut it is alleged that the signalman was partly to blame. for placing the train on the wrong track. Rescue work was most difficult in the drizzling rain. The coaches wore embedded in one another, and the sides ripped out. The engine was raised on end, forming a triangle with the track. A numbering of passengers were hurt through jumping wildly from the train on the first impact.