High-speed passenger train crashes into freight train in Belgium

A high-speed passenger train rammed into a slow-moving freight train around 11 p.m. Sunday in Hermalle-Sous-Huy, eastern Belgium, killing three people and sending 10 others to hospital, the authorities said on Monday. authorities. Twenty-seven other passengers were treated at the scene.

The wreckage of a passenger train is pictured after it crashed into the back of a freight train in the eastern Belgian town of Saint-Georges-sur-Meuse June 6, 2016. REUTERS/ Francois LenoirFRANCOIS LENOIR / Reuters

Belgian prosecutor Brigitte Leroy said the passenger train was traveling at around 60 mph (100 km/h) and the freight at 6-9 mph (10-15 km/h) at the time of the accident.

Picture:
Railway workers walk by the wreckage of the passenger and freight train after their collision, June 6, 2016.Virginia Mayo/AP

Belgium’s national rail operator, SNCB, reported there had been “a disturbance of signals” on the rail line about an hour and a half before the sinking, but said the problem had been resolved. A spokesperson for Infrabel, a separate company which oversees Belgium’s rail infrastructure, said the facilities where the sinking occurred “were struck by lightning” earlier on Sunday.

But the cause of the accident has not yet been determined.

Picture:
Broken window after the collision.Virginia Mayo/AP

At midday on Monday, Belgian media reported that only one of the injured was still being treated: a 26-year-old man who underwent two operations for broken ribs and vertebrae and abdominal pain.

Image: BELGIUM-CRASH-TRAIN
This aerial photo taken on June 6, 2016 shows the scene of a collision between a freight train and a passenger train en route between Liège and Namur, in Saint-Georges-sur-Meuse, eastern Belgium. Investigators have been working on wreckage from a high-speed train crash in eastern Belgium on Monday that killed at least three people and injured nine others. A high-speed passenger train on Sunday night slammed into the rear of a slow moving freight train on the same track for reasons that remain unexplained. / AFP PHOTO / BELGA / LAURIE DIEFFEMBACQ / Belgium OUTLAURIE DIEFFEMBACQ/AFP/Getty ImagesLAURIE DIEFFEMBACQ / AFP-Getty Images

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