No fewer than forty-one people have died on Friday morning in a train carrying nearly five hundred people from the capital Taipei to Taitung when it crashed and derailed in a tunnel in Taiwan.
TOS News gathered that the crash took place at about 09:00 local time (01:00 GMT) and that four hundred and ninety people were on the train.
As the time of filing this report, forty-one people are dead and more than sixty people injured.
The train reportedly hit a construction vehicle that had fallen onto the tracks at the tunnel’s mouth. Dozens more have sustained injuries, with rescuers trying to access several damaged carriages.
Also, hundreds have been rescued from the first four carriages, but about two hundred remain trapped in the train. President of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen delivered a statement saying “rescuing those trapped is our highest priority now.”
Friday’s crash could be the island’s worst rail disaster in decades.
The last major train derailment in Taiwan was in 2018, which left eighteen people dead.
The island’s worst crash in recent history was in 1991, when thirty passengers were killed and one hundred and twelve injured after two trains collided.
