70 injured in Israeli train collision

Apr 7, 2011, 13:06 GMT

Tel Aviv - Around 70 people were evacuated to hospital Thursday after two passenger trains collided head-on just outside a station north of Tel Aviv.

Some of them were given treatment for shock, while most other injuries were 'very minor' because the trains were travelling at low speed due to their proximity to the station of the coastal town of Netanya, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

Witnesses said the double-decker trains hit each other near a point where two railway tracks come together a few hundred metres south of the station.

Human error was believed to have caused the accident, with police and Israel Railways checking whether one of the drivers had ignored a traffic light or sign ordering him to stop at the point.

The locomotive of one train hit the second wagon of the other, as the first wagon disconnected, said the witnesses, adding that one of the trains was badly damaged.

'We had just left Netanya station when we heard a loud boom,' a passenger on the southbound train told reporters.

He too speculated that one of the drivers may have failed to obey a traffic light directing him to the right track, adding that the only reason a disaster had been averted was 'sheer luck,' because the train had not yet accelerated.

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