At least 55 passengers have been killed and 575 others injured after an overcrowded passenger train derailed in Cameroon, the government said in a communique read on state television.
Fourteen people remained trapped on Friday under the wreckage of the train that derailed en route between Cameroon’s two largest cities.
The Camrail inter-city train was traveling from the capital, Yaounde, to the port city of Douala when the accident occurred near the train station in the town of Eseka, around 120 km west of the capital.
“There was a loud noise. I looked back and the wagons behind us left the rails and started rolling over and over. There was a lot of smoke,” said a witness who was traveling in a wagon near the front of the train.
Before its departure from Yaounde, he said that a railway employee said additional wagons had been added to the train to accommodate extra passengers, though it was unclear if that played a role in the accident.
The collapse of a section of the main highway between the capital and Douala had prompted increased numbers of passengers to undertake the journey by rail. The two incidents, which occurred on the same day, have now effectively cut the main transportation axis in the Central African country of over 22 million.
“There are the bodies of women, children. There are many,” said one employee of Camrail, which is operated by France’s Bollore, speaking from the scene of the accident. He said three of his colleagues were among the victims.
