Worst rail disasters of the last decade

With hundreds killed and more injured in a three-train collision in India, AFP looks back on some of the worst rail disasters of the last 10 years:

– Greek collision –

On February 28, 2023, a head-on collision between a freight train and a passenger train on the route between Athens and Thessaloniki claimed 57 lives, in the country’s worst rail accident. 

– Stowaways derailed –

On March 10, 2022, a freight train loaded with stowaways derailed in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Lualaba province, killing at least 75 people and injuring 125 others. A month later, at least eight people died when a goods train derailed in the same area.

– Pakistan farmlands –

On June 7, 2021, at least 63 people died when a train hurtling through farmland derailed and collided with another passenger service in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province.

– Taiwan tragedy –

On April 2, 2021, at least 49 people were killed and 200 injured when a passenger train collided with a truck that slid down an embankment near the city of Hualien — the island’s worst rail disaster in decades.

– Pakistan pilgrims –

At least 74 people died and more than 40 were injured on October 31, 2019, when a fire broke out on an overcrowded passenger train carrying pilgrims to a religious gathering near Lahore.

– Crowds on tracks –

A speeding train ran over revellers watching fireworks during a Hindu festival in northern India on October 19, 2018, killing at least 60 people.

– Indian express disaster –

At least 146 people died when an Indore-Patna Express train with around 2,000 people on board derailed in Uttar Pradesh on November 20, 2016, sending carriages crashing into each other.

– Speeding Cameroon train –

A train travelling from the capital Yaounde to the economic hub of Douala derailed on October 21, 2016, killing at least 79 people and injuring around 550 others. It was travelling “abnormally” fast before the crash, the investigation into the crash concluded.

– Congo accident –

A goods train carrying hundreds of illegal passengers flew off the rails in a swampy and inaccessible part of the south of the Democratic Republic of Congo on April 22, 2014, killing at least 136 people. Many had to be buried in mass graves nearby.

– Spain derailing –

About 80 people were killed and about 140 injured when a high-speed train slammed into a concrete wall near the northwestern city of Santiago de Compostela on July 24, 2013. The train had been approaching a curve at more than twice the speed limit.