No fewer than 22 people died and 175 were injured when a train derailed in northeastern Taiwan on Sunday, authorities said, in the island’s worst rail disaster in more than three decades.
Four carriages overturned in the crash, which occurred in Yilan County near the coast on a line popular among tourists when all eight cars ran off the tracks on a bend near a station, officials said.
It was unclear what caused the crash. As of 9:35 p.m. (1335 GMT), all 366 passengers onboard – including the dead and injured – had been evacuated or removed from the wreckage, the Taiwan Railways Administration said.
Hundreds of rescuers and military personnel worked through the wreckage with spotlights on Sunday night in search of survivors, with ambulances stationed nearby.
Rescue workers, some attending to injured people at the scene, used cranes to lift the battered cars, some of which were lined in a zigzag pattern near the tracks.
The official Central News Agency said the incident was the island’s deadliest rail tragedy since 30 were killed in a 1981 collision in
An investigation was under way to find out the cause of the crash, Taiwan Railways Administration said. “The train was in pretty good condition,” its Deputy Chief Lu Chieh-Shen told a news conference.
An American citizen was injured. The authority was checking whether more foreigners were on board.
