Speeding train kills 5 rail workers in northern Italy accident: Reports

Local media reported that the train was travelling about 160km/h when five rail workers were killed in the Turin area.

A general view of the empty Porta Nuova railway station, on the sixth day of an unprecedented lockdown across of all Italy imposed to slow the outbreak of coronavirus, in Turin, Italy, March 15, 2020. REUTERS/Massimo Pinca
Porta Nuova railway station in Turin, Italy, in 2020 [File: Massimo Pinca/Reuters]

A train hit and killed five workers and injured two others on railway tracks in the Turin area of northern Italy, local media has reported.

The accident took place at approximately midnight (22:00 GMT) on Wednesday in the municipality of Brandizzo, part of Turin’s metropolitan area, Italy’s ANSA news agency reported.

According to reports, the men were employed by a company that was carrying out work to replace segments of the train line, which connects the major northern cities of Turin and Milan, when they were run over by a locomotive moving empty carriages from Alessandria towards Turin.

Italian media including ANSA and Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported that the train was travelling at some 160 kilometres per hour (almost 100 miles per hour) when the incident occurred.

The workers were said to have been dragged for some distance before the train came to a halt. Two of their colleagues working nearby managed to escape.

Paolo Bodoni, the mayor of Brandizzo, told the AGI news service than an emergency worker had described to him a “chilling scene, with human remains across 300 metres”.

“It’s a huge tragedy,” he said.

“It cannot be excluded that there could have been a communication error,” he said, adding that an investigation was underway.

The train driver was in shock but otherwise unharmed, ANSA reported.

Italy’s train network infrastructure manager Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (RFI) expressed “deep sorrow” following the incident and sent condolences to the families of the deceased workers, according to media reports.

[Unofficial translation: A train hit and killed five workers who were working on the tracks in the Turin area. Two others were injured]

Source: Al Jazeera and news agencies

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