At least 52 people have been killed after a train smashed into a truck and derailed inside a tunnel in Taiwan.
Some 72 passengers remain trapped inside the mangled carriages, while another 40 have been rushed to hospital, after the train crashed outside the city of Hualien on Friday.
The express train was packed with around 350 people, many of whom were standing, as it carried people who were heading home at the start of the long weekend.
The train, an express traveling from Taipei to Taitung carrying many tourists and people heading home at the start of a long weekend, came off the rails north of Hualien in eastern Taiwan, the fire department said.
Images of the crash scene show carriages inside the tunnel ripped apart from the impact, while others crumpled, hindering rescuers from reaching passengers.
The train was carrying around 350 people, the fire department said. Taiwan media said many people were standing as the train was so full, and were thrown about when it crashed.
Between 80 to 100 people were evacuated from the first four carriages of the train, while carriages five to eight have “deformed” and are hard to gain access to, it added.
“Is everyone out in carriage four?” a lady is heard shouting from inside the tunnel, in images provided by the fire department.
The official Central News Agency said a truck that was “not parked properly” was suspected of sliding into the path of the train. The fire department showed a picture of what appeared to be the truck’s wreckage lying next to the derailed train.
“Our train crashed into a truck,” one man said in a video aired on Taiwanese television, showing pictures of the wreckage. “The truck came falling down.”
Part of the train was situated outside the tunnel, and those in carriages still in the tunnel were being led to safety, Taiwan’s railway administration said.
Images showed an injured passenger being stretched out of the crash scene, her head and neck in a brace, passengers gathering suitcases and bags in a tilted, derailed carriage and others walking along the tracks littered with wreckage.
The accident occurred at the start of a long weekend for the traditional Tomb Sweeping Day.
Taiwan’s mountainous east coast is a popular tourist destination, and the railway line from Taipei down the east coast is renowned for its tunnels and route that hugs the coast just north of Hualien where the crash occurred.
The line connecting Taipei with Hualien was only opened in 1979.
In 2018, 18 people died and 175 were injured when a train derailed in northeastern Taiwan. In 1981, 30 were killed in a collision in northern Taiwan.“There was a construction vehicle that didn't park properly and slid onto the rail track,” Hualien county police chief Tsai Ding-hsien told reporters.
“This is our initial understanding and we are clarifying the cause of the incident,” he added.
Local media pictures from the scene showed the back of a yellow flatbed truck on its side next to the train.
President Tsai Ing-wen's office said she had ordered hospitals to prepare for a mass casualty event. “The top priority now is to rescue the stranded people,” it said in a statement.
The accident occurred on Taiwan's eastern railway line around 9:30am (0130 GMT).
Pictures published by local news website UDN showed the front of the train inside the tunnel had been pulverised into a twisted mesh of metal.
The Central Emergency Operation Center gave a lower suspected death toll of 26 people showing no signs of life.
Escape by roof
People further back in the train were able to walk away from the crash comparatively unscathed.
A live broadcast by UDN outside the tunnel showed a row of undamaged train carriages with rescuers helping passengers escape.
“It felt like there was a sudden violent jolt and I found myself falling to the floor,” an unidentified female survivor told the network, saying she suffered a cut to her head.
“We broke the window to climb to the roof of the train to get out,” she added.
The eight-car train was travelling from Taipei to the southeastern city of Taitung and was carrying about 350 passengers.
The accident occurred at the start of the busy annual Tomb Sweeping Festival, a long holiday weekend when Taiwan's roads and railways are usually packed.
During the festival, people return to ancestral villages to tidy up the graves of their relatives and make offerings.
Taiwan's eastern railway line is usually a popular tourist draw down its dramatic and less populated eastern coastline.
With the help of multiple tunnels and bridges, it winds its way through towering mountains and dramatic gorges before entering the picturesque Huadong Valley.
Friday's crash looks set to be one of Taiwan's worst railway accidents in recent decades.
The last major train derailment in Taiwan was in 2018 and left 18 people dead at the southern end of the same line.
The driver of the eight-carriage train was later charged with negligent homicide. More than 200 of the 366 people on board were also injured.
That crash was the island's worst since 1991, when 30 passengers were killed and 112 injured after two trains collided in Miaoli.
Thirty were also killed in 1981 after a truck collided with a passenger train at a level crossing and sent coaches over a bridge in Hsinchu.
And in 2003, 17 died and 156 were injured after a train on the Alishan mountain railway plunged into a chasm at the side of the track.
