Trenes Argentinos put the time of the crash at 10:31 a.m. on Friday, 1331 GMT. A seven-car passenger train had run into a locomotive and an empty train car in Buenos Aires, and by the operator’s own count at least 60 people were hurt.
“So far, as reported by the health authorities present at the scene, there are at least 60 people with injuries of varying severity,” the state-run operator said in a statement. It added that an investigation into the cause would be opened. Services on the San Martin line were halted.
Television and drone footage showed the trains head-to-head on an overpass in the Palermo neighborhood. The first car of the passenger train had derailed and was damaged. Reuters reporters at the scene saw passengers carried on stretchers to ambulances and to helicopters waiting to fly the most seriously injured to city hospitals.
The emergency response
Alberto Crescenti, head of the local emergency medical system SAME, gave Reuters the figures. “Ninety ambulances were used on the scene, 90 passengers were transferred and attended to, of which 30 were referred with (the most serious categorization) code red,” he said.
Two passengers were flown to Santojanni hospital with head and thorax trauma. “They were lucid but as a precaution they were the first to be flown,” Crescenti said. “In total, we treated about 100 passengers.”
Bloomberg and the Clarin newspaper both reported at least 60 injured, with Clarin saying half had been taken to hospitals in the area. No deaths were reported. City firefighters said nobody was trapped, and passengers who were unhurt walked out along the tracks.
The cause was not clear. The Minister of Transport announced that the San Martin line was interrupted. The crash also came a day after a 24-hour strike called to protest against the government had suspended almost all transport services, trains included.
Sources
Sources
- Sixty injured in Buenos Aires train collision – The Globe and Mail
- At least 60 injured in train crash in Buenos Aires | BGNES
