BRATISLAVA: Six people were killed and five others injured Thursday when a passenger train and bus collided at a railway crossing in southern Slovakia, rescuers said.
The crash occurred just after 5:00 p.m. (1500 GMT) near the southwestern town of Nove Zamky, the CTK news agency reported.
Railway spokeswoman Vladimira Bahylova told AFP the Eurocity train had been headed from Prague to Budapest.
“Six people suffered injuries incompatible with life,” the Slovak rescue service said, updating a previous toll of five dead.
“At least five people were injured,” it added on Facebook.
Petra Klimesova, a spokeswoman of the rescue services, said the injured required “immediate medical assistance.”
“I am afraid the number of people killed in this accident might grow,” she told AFP.
Bahylova said the driver of the train “suffered burns because the locomotive caught on fire.”
She said the collision occurred at a railway crossing that was protected by barriers and was equipped with light signals.
Local media published video footage of passengers carrying luggage alongside a train partially in flames, as thick grey smoke rose to the sky.
Passenger Katarina Molnarova, who recorded the video, told AFP that she “felt and heard a crash and a bang” just as the train left the Nove Zamky station.
“After a couple of minutes we were able to get off... We saw that the frontal part of the train was on fire,” said the 43-year-old cosmetician from the southern town of Sturovo.
“There was no screaming or panicking... We grabbed our luggage and walked to the road... I saw parts of the bus that had been scattered upon impact.”
Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok and deputy police chief Rastislav Polakovic were on their way to the scene of the incident, police said on Facebook.
Six killed as train collides with bus in Slovakia
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Six killed as train collides with bus in Slovakia
- “Six people suffered injuries incompatible with life,” the Slovak rescue service said, updating a previous toll of five dead
- Petra Klimesova, a spokeswoman of the rescue services, said: “I am afraid the number of people killed in this accident might grow“
South Africa declares national disaster as floods batter region
- Authorities continued to search for survivors and recover bodies at the weekend, but flooding had started receding in some areas
- Rivers burst their banks and swallowed entire neighborhoods in several regions of Mozambique
JOHANNESBURG: South Africa on Sunday declared a national disaster after widespread flooding that destroyed homes and killed dozens, while thousands sought shelter in neighboring Mozambique.
Heavy rains and storms have battered the two southern African countries for weeks, claiming more than 30 lives in South Africa’s northeastern Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces.
Rivers burst their banks and swallowed entire neighborhoods in several regions of Mozambique, displacing thousands including a woman who was forced to give birth on a roof as she sheltered from flood waters.
“I classify the disaster as a national disaster,” the head of South Africa’s National Disaster Management Center Elias Sithole said in a statement Sunday.
Authorities continued to search for survivors and recover bodies at the weekend, but flooding had started receding in some areas, including the famed Kruger National Park, which had been forced to close and evacuate guests Thursday.
“Day visitation to the park will resume as of tomorrow,” South African National Parks announced on social media, still urging visitors to “exercise caution.”
- Baby born on a roof -
In Mozambique, rescue efforts were slow to reach survivors who sheltered on roofs and in trees.
At least eight people had died in the country since December 21, according to official data, but numbers were expected to rise as more people were declared missing.
A resident of Gaza province north of Maputo, Chauna Macuacua, told AFP that her sister-in-law had given birth on a roof where the family was waiting to be rescued since Thursday.
“We’ve been here for 4 days. My nephew was born yesterday around 11 PM (2100 GMT), and we still haven’t had any rescue or assistance for the baby and mother,” she said.
Wilker Dias, the director of a civil society group called Plataforma Decide, said he had received reports of several people missing.
“I think the numbers of dead will increase in the next hours,” he told AFP.
South Africa also dispatched rescue teams to southern Mozambique Sunday after a car carrying five members of a South African mayoral delegation was swept away by floodwaters in Chokwe, 200 kilometers (124 miles) north of Maputo.
According to the latest figures released by the Mozambican government on Friday, more than 173,000 people had been affected by the floods across the country.
