At least six dead after train and bus collide at Slovakia level-crossing

[AndrewE]

Slovakia train-bus crash: Six dead after collision in Nove Zamky

Another five have reportedly been injured following the crash about 80km east of Bratislava.

www.bbc.com

At least six people have been killed after an international express train collided with a bus on a level crossing in southern Slovakia, emergency workers say.

The accident happened near the town of Nove Zamky, about 80km east of the capital Bratislava, according to an emergency services Facebook post. News agencies are reporting that at least five others were injured in the incident, which happened at around 17:00 local time (16:00 BST). The drivers of both the bus and the train were among those hurt and have been taken to hospital, the former in a critical condition.

All of the fatalities are thought to be people who were on the Arriva bus, which officials said was sliced in two by the impact. Photos showed the locomotive on fire and passengers walking to safety along the tracks.
...
The train was the regular EuroCity 279 service travelling from Prague to Budapest via Bratislava. It was operated by a Czech Railways locomotive pulling Slovak Railways carriages.

Czech Railways praised the actions of its driver, who it said had prevented injuries to train passengers by taking prompt action to avoid derailment. He is understood to have jumped into the control room seconds before impact, and suffered burns in the subsequent fire. According to an Arriva spokeswoman quoted in the Slovak media, the bus driver had over thirty years experience.

Local media published video footage of passengers carrying luggage alongside a train partially in flames, as thick grey smoke rose to the sky.

According to unconfirmed Slovak media reports, the level crossing had lights and barriers but these had been left out of action by a recent storm. It is unclear whether they were working properly at the time of the collision.

 

[Cloud Strife]

If memory serves, this part of the line has four tracks, so if the level crossing was out of action, it could have been incredibly dangerous. Having said that, there isn't much respect for level crossings in this part of the world.

 

[scragend]

If memory serves, this part of the line has four tracks, so if the level crossing was out of action, it could have been incredibly dangerous. Having said that, there isn't much respect for level crossings in this part of the world.

This is a grab from a video on Euronews. Going from the factory in the background and the lineside hut, it appears to be this crossing.



This is after the lines out of Nove Zamky diverge, so it's only double track at this point.

The news articles give conflicting reports as to whether the crossing barriers were out of action, or they were lowered and then raised and traffic proceeded, but the train came after the barriers had been raised. If the latter is true then something's gone sadly wrong there.

I will be passing through Nove Zamky in a couple of weeks' time so this is a little bit close to home.