Zambian government officials on Wednesday confirmed that 82 people were injured in a near-fatal train derailment in the country’s Southern province on Tuesday.
Several coaches carrying more than 200 people derailed and overturned in the town of Mazabuka, about 200km south of Lusaka, during peak travelling time.
Initially hundreds of passengers bound for various destinations were said to have been injured in a report published by the state-run Times of Zambia newspaper.
But officials from the transport ministry later on Wednesday gave the number of injured as 82 people, with scores of other passengers being treated as out-patients at Mazabuka district hospital.
The government has in the wake of the accident directed the Railway System of Zambia (RCZ) to speed up rehabilitation works on the dilapidated rail line and replace wagons to avoid accidents.
Speaking from the accident scene on Wednesday, Minister of Transport and Communication Abel Chambeshi said the government is not happy with the pace of rehabilitation works by RCZ, to which the repair of the national rail line is commissioned.
Chambeshi said the rail tracks were last repaired in 1906, and that the government will soon send rail inspectors to enforce the conditions of the agreement. Rail tracks are old and have outlived their usefulness, he said.
The RCZ, meanwhile, said it is still investigating the cause of the accident and pledged that repairs to the damaged section of tracks will be completed by Wednesday.
The company has complained of rampant theft and sabotage to the railway tracks due to the country’s lucrative scrap-metal market. — Sapa-DPA