PRAGUE (AFP) – Four people were killed and more than 20 injured when an express train crashed head-on with a freight train in the Czech city of Pardubice, officials said yesterday.
The express train from Prague with more than 300 passengers on board was travelling overnight to the Ukrainian town of Chop when it collided with the freight train, which was carrying calcium carbide, a caustic and flammable chemical.
Images from the scene on Czech TV showed a derailed carriage and disoriented passengers, some wrapped in blankets, being ushered into buses.
Prime Minister Petr Fiala described the crash as “a great disaster”.
“We all think of the victims and the injured. I express sincere condolences to the bereaved,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
The accident happened near the main train station in Pardubice, around 100 kilometres east of the capital Prague.
Local emergency services spokeswoman Alena Kisiala told AFP that paramedics had treated 26 injured people.
“Four of them unfortunately suffered injuries incompatible with life,” she added.
The mangled wreckage blocked the main train corridor connecting Prague with the Czech Republic’s second city of Brno and Ostrava for hours, with trains being replaced by buses.
