
At least four people died and 26 others were injured when a passenger train collided with a freight train at midnight on Wednesday in Pardubice, a city of more than 90,000 in the central part of the Czech Republic, according to Czech media. .
"Four passengers suffered fatal injuries," Alena Kisiala, a spokeswoman for the emergency services, told public television. The district governor in Pardubice, Martin Netolitski, spoke on Facebook about 4 dead and 26 injured. According to firefighters, some of the injured are in serious condition.
According to information broadcast by the Czech public television network CT24, the accident happened shortly before midnight near the Pardubice railway station, which is about a hundred kilometers from Prague and is a railway hub. About 300 passengers, including many foreigners, were on the train, according to state television, which broadcast footage showing a derailed carriage and survivors boarding a bus near Pardubice's central railway station. The passenger train, owned by private company RegioJet, was traveling from the Czech capital Prague to the Ukrainian town of Chop, which neighbors Slovakia. According to the official schedule, it departed from Prague at 22:52 and was scheduled to depart from Pardubice at 23:47 (Greece time). He was due to arrive in Chop at around 11:35 today (Greece time), as he would cross a part of Slovakian territory from west to east.
The freight train was carrying calcium carbonate, Czech fire brigade spokeswoman Ventula Horakova told public television. It is an industrial product used for the production of acetylene. The Ministers of the Interior and Transport rushed to the scene of the accident, while Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala expressed his condolences to the families of the dead through X.
In the Czech Republic, a passenger express and a freight train collided
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В компании noted that the number of victims may increase. pic.twitter.com/8G5AlAFAXV