At least 28 people were killed and 73 injured in Cuba’s deadliest accident in years on Saturday after a train slammed into a bus, state television reported.
”In this fatal accident, as of 6pm [local time], 28 people have been killed and another 73 remain in hospital, 15 of whom are in serious condition,” the state news report said of the accident in the south-east of the Caribbean nation.
The train had left Cuba’s second city, Santiago, headed for Manzanillo, in Granma province. It slammed into the bus at a crossing in Yara, about 800km south-east of Havana, the report said.
Officials rushed to the scene and other people came to help the injured and give blood, the report added. Police were investigating the cause of the crash, which authorities said was Cuba’s deadliest accident in years.
Last June, 11 people were killed and 50 were injured when a truck flipped over in the Santiago area.
Cuba’s lack of adequate public transport means that buses and trains get dangerously crowded. Other vehicles such as trucks in rural areas are jammed and used as makeshift buses where none operate.
That was the case of the deadly June accident, which happened when a crowded truck flipped when its tire exploded in Guama, in the Santiago area. — AFP
