Train crash in Buenos Aires leaves 49 dead and at least 600 injured
At least 49 people were killed and 600 injured after a train crashed early Wednesday morning while pulling into one of Buenos Aires main railway stations, city officials confirmed.
A 7-year-old boy was amongst the first reported fatalities as he remained trapped inside one of the front carriages for almost three hours. Emergency teams concluded the rescuing of victims from the wreckage, sending critically injured to local hospitals to be treated. Paramedics were also treating victims at the scene.
The head of the emergency services Alberto Crescenti said that the amount of people injured had increased to “at least 600.”
After the crash at least 100 people were pulled out of the wreckage and taken to nearby hospitals to be treated. Sources at the scene said that rescue activities were non-stop and that there were many injured passengers sat in the station hall waiting to be moved to hospital.
Argentine Transport Secretary Juan Pablo Schiavi was present at the scene and earlier described the accident as “terrible.”
The train crashed when it was moving into the station, as it failed to stop at the lights and collided into the platform. Schiavi told reporters “it was moving at a speed of 26 kilometres per hour when entering the station, however when it crashed, it had slowed down and was travelling at 20 kilometres per hour.”
He went on to say “the impact of the crash caused the second carriage to be pushed 6 metres into the first carriage of the train.”
The Once station, located in the heart Plaza Miserere is one of Buenos Aires' central train stations. The state-run TBA Sarmiento train line runs from Moreno to Once station, and was filled with passengers on their daily commute.
Wednesday commuter tragedy in the Once station is considered among the three worst in Argentine history, behind the 1979 Benavidez accident when two trains collided head on with 148 killed and 368 injured.
In 1978 the North Star express with 2.130 passengers crashed into a truck with a load of 25.000 kilos that was trying to cross the rails. The result was 55 killed and 56 injured.
The safety record of Argentine trains is not encouraging in spite of the terrible accidents.
A year ago a local train collided with a long distance train, leaving four people killed and over a hundred injured. Last April another 70 were injured when a locomotive and a train crashed and on 18 August 70 people were injured when a train crashed into a local bus.
September last year two trains and a bus were involved in an accident in the outskirts of Buenos Aires leaving 11 people dead and over 200 injured. Finally last November, in the northern province of San Luis a train ran into a minibus with school children killing eight.
Suggested Stories
-
May 25th 2012
Three former presidents admit Mercosur has failed and has Uruguay ‘trapped’
-
May 25th 2012
Argentina extends dollar purchase control to residents travelling abroad
-
May 25th 2012
Argentina revokes commuter railway concession involved in crash that killed 51m and injured 700
-
May 25th 2012
Argentina attacks WTO and US on trade issues at OECD ministerial round
39 comments Feed
Note: Comments do not reflect MercoPress’ opinions. They are the personal view of our users. We wish to keep this as open and unregulated as possible. However, rude or foul language, discriminative comments (based on ethnicity, religion, gender, nationality, sexual orientation or the sort), spamming or any other offensive or inappropriate behaviour will not be tolerated. Please report any inadequate posts to the editor. Comments must be in English. Thank you.
RIP
Rest in peace to the ones that have been lost.
May the big G man bless their souls, onto their next journey.
I don't know how they could afford to maintain them when the price of a ticket to go 20-30 miles is u$.50 or less.
The reason they will never learn is because these people STILL look at discipline as an obstacle to their “freedom”, instead of looking at it for what it is - the source of all creativity and love - and Public Safety!!!!
Feb 22nd, 2012 - 11:03 pm
Report abuse
Thanks Menem for not including the regular maintenance of the trains in the privatization agreements.
Yeah, right, it's all Menem's fault.
What a Loser.
Not it's not all his fault. The only one who said that was you. I just blamed him for not including regular maintenance of the trains in the agreements, that's it.
But what to expect from someone who believes it's right to interpret my words as he pleases and think it's what I actually said.
You are absolutely right. But Menem should have done that. He did the privatizations. Not that CFK shouldn't impose it now anyway.
Doing business as usual
discovery.ucl.ac.uk/24383/
“This paper investigates trends in the frequencies and numbers of fatalities in fatal train collisions, derailments and buffer overruns on the national railway system of Great Britain. The main part of the paper is based on the 31-year period 1967-1997. After the paper had been completed, but before it was due to be published, the most serious train accident for more than a decade occurred on 5 October 1999, at Ladbroke Grove in London, in which 31 people lost their lives. That accident was by far the most severe ever to have occurred in Great Britain with modern rolling stock; it leads to an upward revision in the current and future fatalities in train accidents. To provide a context for the interpretation of the Ladbroke Grove accident, and to avoid the temptation of being wise after the event, the main part of the paper is presented exactly as it was finalised before the accident; a postscript is then added to update the conclusions. Railway safety has improved over the long term: even after including the Ladbroke Grove accident in the data, the paper estimates that the current mean frequency of accidents from all causes is just over 1 per year, and the mean number of fatalities in such accidents is about 4 per year”
May you find peace.
As for those defending Menem, you guys crack me up.
No wonder this country is condemned to a lifetime of mediocrity. When we will learn?.
21. Comparing UK trains to ARG trains only tells me you have never been to a civilized country. Just a couple of examples,we don't travel with the train doors open nor can people hop on and off while the train is moving.
14. Privatization works in other countries, you can't blame a Prez from 23 years ago for something that happened today. The Ks have destroyed most of the country with transportation just being one of the many things. How can the train company do maintenance when they can't raise fares, import parts etc etc etc.
Look at what CFK is doing to YPF today. They are driving the company to be unprofitable and in then they wonder why they don't explore? I don't know if they don't see the whole picture or if they don't care. It is truly astounding how dumb your gov't is.
Train privatisation did not work in the UK it's just we have thrown money at the problem higher fares worse service more subsidy more accidents as well.
Muchachos, los vagones son de 1961 o me equivoco ?
@16
Juanito, I do remember what happened in 76, we fought terrorism and we won. We should have called for elections right away but that's a different issue all together.
When are you guys going to get rid of CFK?? Just a question
@17 You are absolutely right !
If they were a good and responsible company and if they knew the trains needed maintenance(as 99% of Argentines do know), they would have either suspended the service or cancel the privatization contract. It's not as if they didn't know this could happen.
@26
Como minimo.
It's not as if we could. The military wasn't very willing of giving up power and people was tired of the democracy, a one on which they had lost hope.
Well, I'm doing quite fine. As long as the government doesn't meddle with Brazilian tourism I can't complain.
But really, I helped to try to get rid of her. I was for Alfonsin before I realized he was too damn stupid. So I went for Rodriguez Saa, who all in all is a good statesman.
Look at what they are doing to YPF, the are required to supply diesel to their stations, or be fined, the gov't isn't letting them use U$ to buy the diesel, which MUST be imported so they are stuck. What should do? If it were me running YPF I would get out of the country NOW.
I know. They could have cancelled the contract.
You don't have an idea what's like when there isn't fuel for like 3 days. This has been happening for years. They can explore. And start production in that big depot they found in Patagonia.
If we were self sufficient at one point (in the 80's) , what is going on right now that we are not ? Just a question
people were tired of the democracy .... is not that , el pais era un gran quilombo with Lopez Rega, Isabelita and Co .... what a disaster !
I didn't mean of democracy as a whole. I wanted to refer to the last democratic governments. They were tired of that. Quilombo, montoneros, gremialistas, inflacion, guerrillas, la triple A, los puterios en el gobierno.
True !
You can blame the Ks on the poor o/g business in Arg just like Chavez and Evo ruined o/g business in their countries. Arg has taken some of the same policies and DESTROYED the business. With oil at U$100 barrel your country can't afford to import it! If you think waiting 3 days is bad wait until this winter...
Well, I know the times. The technology we have it. But anyway, they should start now to produce the oil. Personally, I believe that with rather normal effort we can see it in 5 to 6 years.
I blame them on that. But, it all started before them, which is not to forget.
And I know the price. Who knows. Maybe the reason why they don't explote or explore for new oil is to save it for when it starts lacking in the world. Now that would surprise more than one.
I believe winter has more to do with gas. Anyway I have a split, so I don't care much on it.
Safety is a state of mind: there are NO accidents; there is always a cause and it invariably comes back to human error at some point in the investigation.
We should wait till the investigations give us an image of why it happened. Nevertheless it's for the government to take a chance at making things better.
You can try to prevent human error, but you can't erase or impede it.
I hope you do not think I was being judgemental with regard to the driver or loacal staff, because I was not. They cannot correct the incompetent management of the railways or roads.
Only the MANAGEMENT can do that AND that will be where the problem rests.
Commenting for this story is now closed.
If you have a Facebook account, become a fan and comment on our Facebook Page!