Two trains collided head-on in north-western Turkey on Wednesday, killing six people and injuring about 30 others, an official said.
Firefighters were trying to enter the first car of one of the trains to pull out passengers. The car was smashed and flipped over in the collision near the village of Tavsancil in Kocaeli province.
One of the trains was travelling from Ankara to Istanbul. The other was travelling from Istanbul to Adapazari, in north-western Turkey, officials said.
The train travelling from Ankara was carrying 153 passengers and nine crew members, the Anatolia news agency said.
Six people were killed and about 30 injured, said Esref Onen, the mayor of Tavsancil.
”There are several people trapped in the first car, which is totally destroyed,” Kamil Dogan, a passenger on one of the trains, told CNN-Turk television. ”There are several people lying on the ground dead and injured.”
Dogan said the crash occurred just after the train left Tavsancil station.
”The first car flipped to its side and looks like an accordion,” said Erdem Gosterisli, who was riding in the Ankara-to-Istanbul train.
Several ambulances and fire trucks rushed to the scene, NTV said.
Cemal Yaman, an official of a local branch of the train workers’ union, told the Anatolia news agency that the Ankara-to-Istanbul train ignored a signal and failed to stop at a junction, causing the crash.
The accident comes just weeks after a newly inaugurated high-speed train from Istanbul to Ankara derailed, killing 37 people.
Three days later, a passenger train slammed into a minibus at a railroad crossing in western Turkey, killing 15 people and injuring four others. — Sapa-AP