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Thailand halts trains after attack
Saboteurs blamed for causing derailment that injured 14 people.
Last Modified: 05 Jun 2007 06:27 GMT
Twelve passengers and two crew members
were injured in the derailment [Reuters]
Thailand has suspended all train services in the country's south after a derailment on Monday injured 14 passengers and crew.
 
Suspected separatists removed nuts and bolts from a 3m stretch of railway and loosened connections between carriages, causing one train to derail, officials said.

Montakan Srivilas, a spokesman for the State Railways of Thailand, said Muslim fighters were believed to be responsible.

 

The train, carrying about 200 passengers, derailed about 750km south of

The train was heading from Yala, one of three Muslim-dominated provinces which have been the focus of the uprising in the region which flared in January 2004, to Hat Yai, the commercial centre of the south.
 
No trains would run south of Hat Yai until the track inspections, which were expected to be completed on Wednesday, Tanongsak Pongprasert, another rail official, said.
 
"We have had to suspend all 18 train services from and to Hat Yai today as we have to check the damage to the tracks and take the derailed train out of the way after the sabotage," he said, adding that "if there's no major hassle" service should resume on Thursday.
 
The Thai government has sent 30,000 soldiers to the south, but they have so far failed to end the near-daily violence that has killed more than 2,100 people since 2004.
Source:
Agencies
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