PARIS TRAIN SMASH

Taranaki Daily News, 13 April 1928, Page 7

PARIS TRAIN SMASH

16 KILLED; 35 INJUREQ TRAGIC MISTAKE AT SWITCH LEADING CARS TBLESCOPEQ CROWD THROWN INTO PANIQ By TeSegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Received April 12, 5.5 p.m. A. and N.Z. Paris, April 11. Sixteen were killed and 35 injured, many critically,- when two speeding passenger trains crashed head-on just outride the Gare du Nord this morning. All the passengers had not been released s' noon and the list of injured may increase. There were no Britons among the casualties. The express for Amiens bad just left the station and was gathering speed when a local train switched over on to the same line and the two met in a head-on collision at 25 miles an hour. The crash was heard a mile distant, throwing the crowded station into an immediate panic. People rushed hither and thither, endeavouring to reach the scene, while the screams of those injured in the collision rose above the noiee of escaping steam. Officials vainly endeavoured to restore order, but scon the wildly excited 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 details.

The majority of those on 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, but it is alleged 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 were embedded in one another and the sides ripped out. The engines were raised on the track and forming a triangle with it. A number of passengers Were hurt through jumping wildly from the train on the first impact. The leading coaches were telescoped and splintered. Another was upended and rested on a buttress of the Doudeville bridge. Firemen and rescuers are making an effort to release the injured.