At least 49 dead in Buenos Aires train crash

By Veronica Sardon Feb 22, 2012, 16:31 GMT

Buenos Aires - At least 49 people were killed and more than 600 injured Wednesday when a suburban train derailed at a station in central Buenos Aires, authorities said.

Argentine Transport Minister Juan Pablo Schiavi said that 461 people were hospitalized, though many of them had already been released.

Police spokesman Nestor Rodriguez said one of the dead was a minor.

The death toll could, with several of the injured in critical condition, Alberto Crescenti, chief of Buenos Aires' emergency health services, told reporters. Crescenti said that emergency workers had treated 600 people.

The train entered Once station at 20 kilometres per hour, Schiavi said. Arriving at 8:32 am (1132 GMT), it was carrying 1,200-1,500 people, he said, compared to the 2,000 commuters normally packed into a rush-hour train.

Many passengers had walked toward the front cars as they approached the station at Once, Schiavi noted, to be first out of the train and into the connecting subway and buses. A common practice in Buenos Aires, that left the two front cars particularly packed.

'We do not know what happened in those last 40 metres,' he told a press conference about eight hours after the accident. 'The train did not stop.'

Earlier Wednesday, Schiavi said the train appeared to have had a problem with the brakes.

He said that a thorough probe into the accident was underway.

'There is a lot of investigative material,' Schiavi said.

As the train failed to stop, it slammed into barriers at the terminus of the line, crushing the first two cars like an accordion.

In September, 11 people died and more than 200 were injured when a train struck a bus in Buenos Aires.