At least 25 Dead in Belgian Train Collision

BRUSSELS : At least 25 Dead in Belgian Train Collision, Two commuter trains collided head-on at rush hour in a Brussels suburb Monday, killing as many as 25 people, Belgian rail officials said. Other officials said the death toll was lower.

Belgian National Railways told the VRT radio network that 25 people had died. The suburb’s mayor said the death toll was 20. Lodewijk De Witte, governor of the province of Flemish Brabant, told VRT that 10 people were killed.

The trains collided in light snow just outside of the station at Buizingen around 8:30 a.m. (0730GMT).

Television reports showed that the force of the collision pushed the first car of each train up off the tracks. The cars ended up resting against each other. Photos from the scene showed another car that appeared to have tipped onto its side. Rescuers rushed victims on stretchers along the tracks.

“The most recent information we have is that 20 people died,” town Mayor Dirk Pieters told. “I base this on what the police and firefighters tell me.”

There was no immediate word on the number of injured.

Pieters said the seriously hurt were taken to hospitals and the lightly injured were moved to a Buizingen sports complex.

The crash caused massive damage to overhead power lines. Eurostar reported on its Web site that its high-speed trains had suspended service in and out of Brussels and could remain shut down all day.

The international high-speed network Thalys, which links major cities in Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands, temporarily halted all traffic because its trains use the same rails as commuter lines near Hal, said Patricia Baars, a company spokeswoman.

At least four Thalys trains were stopped en route, and the railway operator deployed staffers to stations where they were rerouted to provide assistance to travelers on board, she said.

“No (Thalys) train is moving for the moment … it’s very hard to know today when services will resume,” she said. “It appears this was a very severe accident.”

Thalys has at least 25 round-trip trains operating between Paris and Brussels each day, plus seven linking Brussels and Amsterdam and six from Belgium to Cologne, Germany.

There was no immediate word on the cause of the crash.

It was the most serious Belgian train crash since March 28, 2001, when eight people died when a crowded train plowed into an empty train driving on the wrong tracks.