TRAIN DISASTER; CRASH KILLS AT LEAST 100 IN GERMANY.Byline: Tony Czuczka Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. Hurtling with a momentum that piled train cars one atop another in twisted heaps of steel, Germany's fastest passenger train derailed and jackknifed Wednesday when the lead locomotive broke loose. State officials said at least 100 people were killed. Traveling at 125 mph, car after car slammed into an overpass, bringing it crashing down upon the wreckage. Dazed daze tr.v. dazed, daz·ing, daz·es 1. To stun, as with a heavy blow or shock; stupefy. 2. To dazzle, as with strong light. n. A stunned or bewildered condition. survivors staggered with bloodied hands toward residents who came running out of houses just 150 feet away, protected by an embankment. The Munich-to-Hamburg train, carrying mostly businesspeople, was nearing the Eschede station in northern Germany Northern Germany is the geographic area in the north of Germany. The native German concept of northern Germany is called Norddeutschland. Northern German States Norddeutschland is the geographic area of five German states:
n. The middle of the morning. crash. Passengers felt a rattle, then, soon afterward, the jarring impact, one survivor said. ``I held on and ducked down because you had the feeling you'd be thrown through the air, and then, thank God, it came to a standstill,'' Wolf-Ruediger Schliebener, a passenger from a rear car, told SAT 1 TV. ``Then I saw in the distance to the front, where all the cars were chaotically laying all over.'' The locomotive driver, oblivious to the catastrophe behind him, kept driving through the small train station at Eschede, 35 miles north of Hanover. The stationmaster sta·tion·mas·ter n. Abbr. SM An official in charge of a railroad or bus station. stationmaster Noun the senior official in charge of a railway station Noun 1. finally hit the emergency brakes, bringing the engine to a halt more than a mile from the overpass. The train was prized for both its speed and safety, and the cause of its crash - Germany's worst since World War II - remained unclear late Wednesday. Authorities were unsure how many people were aboard the ICE 884, and casualty tolls varied throughout the day. Lower Saxony Lower Saxony, Ger. Niedersachsen (nē`dərsäk'sən), state (1994 pop. 7,480,000), 18,295 sq mi (47,384 sq km), NW Germany. Hanover is the capital. state officials said at least 100 people were killed and at least 300 people injured in·jure tr.v. in·jured, in·jur·ing, in·jures 1. To cause physical harm to; hurt. 2. To cause damage to; impair. 3. . But rescue coordinators reported 40 injured, while police at the scene said 120 people had been hurt. Police said 78 bodies had been recovered. Searchers were certain they would find still more bodies in two coaches still buried beneath the collapsed overpass, police spokesman Joachim Lindenberg said. Mangled mess The accounting of dead and injured was hampered by the severity of the mangled mess. Rescue workers picked through the wreckage with a crane and pried pried 1 v. Past tense and past participle of pry1. open the metal siding with blowtorches. Survivors were found among the tangle of metal, including a 10-year-old girl pulled from the wreckage 1-1/2 hours after the crash. All 12 cars and the rear engine either derailed or smashed into each other, and splintered glass covered the ground. Screams rang out from the wounded; survivors wandered through the wreckage, some still carrying luggage. Chancellor Helmut Kohl Helmut Josef Michael Kohl (born April 3, 1930) is a German conservative politician and statesman. He was Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 (West Germany between 1982 and 1990) and the chairman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 1973-1998. , informed of the tragedy after arriving in Italy for meetings with Premier Romano Prodi, appeared shaken by the news and cut his visit short. ``So many dead . . . it's a tragedy,'' Kohl, his face tight, said in Bologna with Prodi at his side. ``Excuse me, but I must return home right away.'' The account of the lead locomotive decoupling Decoupling The occurrence of returns on asset classes diverging from their normal pattern of correlation. Notes: Take for example stock and corporate bond returns, which normally rise and fall together. , given by chief regional rescue coordinator Klaus Rathert at a news conference, conflicted with earlier reports suggesting that an auto had plunged into the train from the overpass. Police said an automobile was crushed beneath the wreckage, but it was unclear where the car was parked at the time of the crash. Views of the wreckage offered no obvious clues. The nose of the rear engine stuck from under the bridge, and three derailed cars were piled on each other beneath the collapsed overpass. Survivors were taken to hospitals throughout the region. The Red Cross chartered six buses to take most of the uninjured to Hamburg, spokesman Harald Krueger said. More than 1,100 rescue workers were at the scene, including trauma surgeons and border patrol personnel, who helped free passengers trapped inside the rail cars. The crash was the worst on Germany's premier high-speed ICE - inter-city express - line, inaugurated in 1991. Carrying 65,000 passengers daily, they travel at speeds up to 175 mph - slightly slower than the Japanese bullet trains' top speed of 185 mph. The fastest U.S. trains hit speeds of 125 mph as they run between New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of and Washington, D.C., Amtrak Amtrak, the National Railroad Passenger Corp., authorized to operate virtually all intercity passenger railroad routes in the United States. Amtrak was created by Congress in 1970 in response to more than two decades of continuous operating deficits by privately run said. At top speed, the ICE trains require 1.7 miles to come to an emergency stop. DEADLY TRAIN CRASHES Major train disasters of the 20th century: Dec. 12, 1917 - 543 killed in Modane, France March 2, 1944 - 521 killed in Salerno, Italy June 6, 1981 - 500-plus killed in Bihar, India Jan. 16, 1944 - 500 killed in Leon province in Spain Aug. 20, 1995 - 300-plus killed in Firozabad, India Sept. 22, 1994 - 300 killed in Tolunda, Angola April 3, 1955 - 300 killed in Guadalajara, Mexico Sept. 29, 1957 - 250 killed in Montgomery, West Pakistan (now known as Sahiwal, Pakistan) Feb. 1, 1970 - 236 killed in Buenos Aires Buenos Aires (bwā`nəs ī`rēz, âr`ēz, Span. bwā`nōs ī`rās), city and federal district (1991 pop. , Argentina May 22, 1915 - 227 killed outside Gretna, Scotland Jan. 4, 1990 - 210-plus killed in Sindh Province, Pakistan Oct. 6, 1972 - 208 killed in Saltillo, Mexico Oct. 22, 1949 - 200-plus killed outside Dwor, Poland SOURCE: The World Almanac almanac, originally, a calendar with notations of astronomical and other data. Almanacs have been known in simple form almost since the invention of writing, for they served to record religious feasts, seasonal changes, and the like. and Book of Facts 1998 Associated Press CAPTION(S): 2 Photos, Map, Box PHOTO (1 -- color) Rescue workers seek victims in the wreckage, above, at the crash site. Ingo Wagner/AFP (2 -- color) Left, workers stand amid debris on the tracks. Fabian Bimmer/Associated Press Box: DEADLY TRAIN CRASHES (see text) Map: Germany Wm. J. Castello/Associated Press |
|
||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion