Five killed as Israeli train hits van and derails

By Tova Cohen

BEIT YEHOSHUA, Israel (Reuters) – An Israeli train carrying
200 passengers hit a stationary van in its path and derailed on
Monday, killing at least five people and injuring dozens,
rescue services said.

The impact threw the locomotive on top of one carriage.
Three others lay on their sides in a mass of twisted metal.

Medics carried the injured on stretchers along the tracks
at Beit Yehoshua, a farming village in central Israel. Several
passengers were trapped for two hours before rescuers
stabilized their carriage and pulled them out.

Police said the train, traveling from Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion
airport to the northern port of Haifa, ran into a van that had
stopped at a rail crossing but was pushed on to the tracks by
another vehicle that hit it from behind.

“The truck simply stopped on the track and the driver
managed to get out before the train slammed into it,” a
witness, who identified herself only as Miri, told Israel
Radio.

Ambulances and evacuation helicopters rushed to the scene.
Rescuers clambered over carriages and dazed passengers walked
along the tracks, while others used mobile telephones to call
loved ones.

Rescue services, updating casualty figures, said at least
five people were killed and about 60 injured. Earlier accounts
said several people were dead and up to 150 hurt.

There was no suggestion from Israeli authorities that the
van had been pushed on to the tracks deliberately. Dudi Cohen,
the local police chief, described the collision between the two
vehicles at the crossing as a traffic accident.

Another witness, Avi Adsawi, said the train was not full at
the time of the crash, several hours after the morning rush
hour.

“People on the cars in front were getting off bleeding and
crying,” he said.

In June 2005, seven people were killed and more than 150
injured when a passenger train hit a truck south of Tel Aviv.