12 feared killed in Australian train crash

GLENBROOK (AUSTRALIA), DEC 2: As many as 12 people died today when an Australian commuter train slammed into the back of another passenge...

GLENBROOK (AUSTRALIA), DEC 2: As many as 12 people died today when an Australian commuter train slammed into the back of another passenger train on the outskirts of Sydney.

The official death toll from the collision, which happened at the foot of the Blue Mountains during the morning rush hour, was put at five, with some 65 passengers injured.

But after visiting the site at Glenbrook, 55 km west of Sydney, New South Wales state premier Bob Carr told mediapersons up to a dozen people may have died.

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“There are going to be, maybe, 10 or 12 families in New South Wales tonight who are going to be very sad,” Carr said.

“It could be that high.”

Police said the front carriage of a Sydney-bound train packed with office goers and school children ploughed into the back of the cross-continent Indian-Pacific passenger train which was moving slowly on the same track. Its first three carriages flew off the rails after the crash.

Passengers on the commuter train said the driver ran from his compartment shouting a warning seconds before the crash, which left the Indian-Pacific “embedded” in the commuter train.

“We were going along fine and then the train driver ran down the stairs and said, `Get down everybody’, so we all got down and then it just crashed,” Kate Plim told mediapersons.

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