Sep 6, 2010, 11:11 GMT
Hanoi - A train carrying more than 400 passengers from Hanoi to the northern tourist junction of Lao Cai derailed Monday, killing two Vietnamese passengers.
A 55-year-old grandmother and her 9-month-old great-niece were killed and the driver was seriously injured when the train hit a mound of earth deposited by a landslide in Yen Bai province.
Luong Tuan Anh, a rescue official in Yen Bai, said the train's passengers had been evacuated by bus. A ticket agent at Vietnam Railways said it was unlikely any foreigners had been aboard the train because they usually take the express line.
Do Van Hoan, director of the Yen Lao Railway Transport Co, said heavy rains had triggered the landslide that caused the accident, the news website Dan Tri reported.
The locomotive and first carriage were thrown into a neighboring rice field. Rescue workers had been unable to move the derailed cars because of a lack of roads to move cranes to the site.
In early August, a tourist train on the Hanoi-Lao Cai route was stranded for 30 hours in Yen Bai because of flash floods. Service on the route, constructed in 1903, was also repeatedly interrupted in 2008 because of flooding and landslides.
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