Survivors of the deadliest train crash in Tanzanian history have recounted their 15 minutes of hell aboard a runaway train before it smashed into goods cars on the same line.
Two hundred and twenty-eight bodies have been recovered so far from the tangled mass of steel, glass and wood strewn across the rails at Msagali, near the political capital, Dodoma.
”The passenger train was parked very close to a small station called Ihumwa, 25km from Dodoma, where we
stayed for about 20 minutes,” survivor Moses Rugeiyamu told journalists from his hospital bed in Dodoma.
”Actually, no one knew what was going on, but we thought there was something wrong with the engine, and thought the driver and other engineers on board were trying to find out the problem,” said Rugeiyamu.
Rugeiyamu, whose left ankle was in plaster, said some passengers got out for various reasons, ”but immediately and from nowhere, we saw the train slowly descending backwards”.
The MP for Dodoma, Hashim Saggaf, who was not aboard the train, said that first the engine and then the automatic braking system failed at the top of a long gradient.
”Perhaps the driver panicked. Maybe he should have told everyone to get off at that point,” he said.
”The train started moving in at a very low speed at first, but later ran in a speed which one could not explain. In fact, it was as fast as a plane, you can’t believe it! We were going at a speed
which I can just say was about 200km per hour.”
Saggaf put the speed of the runaway train at 250km per hour and said it took just 15 minutes to travel a distance that normally takes almost an hour.
”I did not know what happened after that, but I only found myself in hospital with an injured hand,” Rugeiyamu said sorrowfully.
Other survivors claimed that the driver probably jumped out the train after he saw the danger approaching.
Another survivor only named as Rugeimukamu disputed the theory, saying ”neither the driver nor any other person could dare jump out of the train at the speed it was moving”.
Bakari Haji, who lost three of his colleagues in the accident, claimed that the driver was not in the engine when the train lost control and started descending backwards.
Survivor Ali Kibaba, a resident of Mwanza, said many passengers may have been saved because they alighted when the train stopped just before Ihumwa.
”All I can say at the moment is that the whole matter was caused by the driver’s negligence. Yes it is, because we stood at the small station for over 20 minutes, before the problem happened.
”We saw him trying to find out the problem we didn’t know, he would have easily told us to get out of the train because he already knew that there was a problem somewhere. In that way, the train would have descended in our absence,” Kibaba said.
The driver of the train, God Chiwelesa, was still at large on Tuesday.
Another survivor, Juma Mapalala, who had a serious leg injury, said he witnessed six people dying, as he was struggling to call for help.
”This is terrible brother!” the still shocked Mapalala said.
Hopes of finding any more survivors have faded, officials said on Wednesday.
”You can see the situation. There is no hope of finding anyone alive,” Transport and Communications Mark Mwandosya said at the site of the accident late on Tuesday.
The corpses were laid out in tents in Dodoma’s stadium, where some 2 000 relatives and other members of the public had managed to identify 85 of them. – Sapa-AFP