Head-on train collision in Bangladesh kills at least 16

DHAKA - Two trains crashed head-on in eastern Bangladesh early on Tuesday (Nov 12), killing at least 16 people and injuring nearly 60, officials said.

The accident took place when a train heading for the port city of Chittagong collided with a train bound for the capital Dhaka at 3am in Brahmanbaria, about 100km east of Dhaka.

The impact of the collision left a couple of compartments of the trains mangled, and rescue workers continued searching to reach passengers trapped inside, Mr Hayat Ud Dowlah Khan, Brahmanbaria district administrator, told Reuters by phone from the accident site.

"At least 16 people have been killed. And another 58 were injured. We have sent the injured to different hospitals in the region,” local police chief Anisur Rahman told AFP.

Cranes and other lifting gear were brought in to rescue trapped passengers, many of whom were asleep when the early morning crash took place. 

"Suddenly there was a big bang. I saw people were screaming," a passenger of the Dhaka-bound train said in television images from the site.

It was not immediately clear how the two trains came to be on the same tracks and the government has ordered an investigation.

[[nid:450916]]

"One of the trains might have broken the signal, leading to the tragedy," one police official, Mr Shayamal Kanti Das, told reporters.

Railway accidents occur relatively frequently in Bangladesh, many of them at unsupervised crossings and also because of the poor condition of tracks.

According to the Shipping and Communication Reporters Forum (SCRF), a private media research group, between January 1 and June 30 this year, at least 202 rail accidents took place in the South Asian country of 168 million people where some of the track is a century old. 

In June, a train plunged into a canal after the bridge it was crossing gave way. Five people were killed and 100 injured. 

The SCRF said pedestrians using mobile phones while crossing tracks, negligence by railway employees and poor maintenance of lines and bridges were the main cause of crashes.