Trains Collide in Belgium

[Louis VI the Fat]

Reports from Belgium say at least 20 people have been killed in a head-on collision between two trains outside the capital, Brussels.
Railway officials said the two trains collided during the morning rush hour at Halle, south-west of Brussels.
The local mayor told Belgian media that at least 20 people had been killed in the crash, but railway officials could not confirm the figure.

Belgian media said the trains collided in snowy conditions.
Mayor Dirk Pieters said "the most recent information we have is that 20 people died".


The trains collided in the commuter town around 0830 local time (0730GMT) on Monday.

Television pictures showed the lead carriages of each train pushed into the air leaning against each other.
Witnesses said people were thrown around violently inside the trains with one passenger describing the "carriages compacted together" by the collision.

'Enormous devastation'
Emergency workers said there was considerable damage to the overhead power lines at the station in Buizingen, the district of Halle where the trains crashed.
Belgium's track operator Infrabel said an investigation into the accident was under way.
"The devastation is enormous," said Infrabel spokesman Bram De Saedeleer.


More plus video here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8515855.stm

Very sad.


One train seems to have ignored a red light.
The way these stories tend to evolve, the death toll will rise as we learn more.

[Fragony]

25 by now. Moros is from there I hope he is ok.

[Hax]

I think Moros is in Leuven, actually. But seriously, strength to the family and friends of the deceased.

[gaelic cowboy]

Is it my imagination or has there been more than one crash in belgium in the last couple of years.
News here said twenty dead very sad sympathys with all.

[Fragony]

I think Moros is in Leuven, actually.

So was this train, this is a busy line, this can turn out to be really bad.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Is it my imagination or has there been more than one crash in belgium in the last couple of years.
News here said twenty dead very sad sympathys with all.

That's my imression too.

Google revealed a whopping ten train crashes in Belgium this past decade, including the infamous one that was caused because of the language barrier. (Don't have a link in English)

Belgium is a small country, but it also has Europe's densest railroad system. Accounting for both, I do not know if it compares badly to other countries.

[gaelic cowboy]

Yeah I figured geography might have a role in this obviously the railways bunch up from across Europe in Belgium.

[Andres]

25 by now. Moros is from there I hope he is ok.

Moros is from Limburg and studies in Leuven; if he goes by train, he doesn't need to go through Brussels or Halle. He probably has a direct connection to Leuven from Genk or Hasselt.

My wife takes the train from Halle to Brussels every day. Fortunately, she takes the train at 7.15 am, about an hour before the accident happened. I called her at work just to be sure, parents and father in law were panicking already (some of the first news bulletins weren't very clear about the exact time of the accident); pretty scary stuff.

I had a 5 minute freak out, can't even start to imagine what other people are going through. My condolences to all the people who had a relative or friend on one of those trains.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Wow, puts my moaning about 10 minute delays into perspective.

Sad news indeed.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Whoah - close call with mrs. Andres. Happy to hear she is alright.


Only last month, there was the harrowing story of that collapsed building.

Video from Liège, Belgium. The collapse occurred about five hours after the intial explosion gutted much of the building. At this point nine bodies have been pulled from the rubble with others missing.

A five-story apartment building caught fire and collapsed Wednesday after an apparent gas explosion, injuring at least 21 people, including a teenager who was pulled from the rubble, officials said.

The blast occurred at about 2 a.m. (0100 GMT) and as darkness fell Wednesday night firefighters were still digging through the rubble looking for other survivors since two separate voices had been heard from within the wreckage, officials said.


http://belgiumstuds.blogspot.com/201...apartment.html

It's just not Belgium's month, I guess.

Very tragic.
There was this man, his daughter lived in the building, where she had just recently moved in with her boyfriend. He couldn't get hold of his daughter, he'd been calling and searching the entire day. She wasn't anywhere to be found, and he feared she was inside. The poor man just spend his entire day there, standing there, before the collapsed building, powerless.
Later, it turned out his daughter was indeed trapped in the building, had even talked to the rescue workers hours after the collapse. Then at one point the fire resumed, the firemen had to retreat, had to abandon her before they managed to reach her, and she and her boyfriend died, stuck in the rubble. They died together in their bed.


(As a rather sad sidenote, I was watching the news last month. The headline began: 'Building collapsed in Belgium...' and I just knew, instantly, which Belgian city this story was going to be about.

[Husar]

Very sad indeed.

[KukriKhan]

Glad to hear most of our Belgian contingent is OK; condolences to the victims and families.

That was some intense impact, knocking some carriages off their wheel-frames. I read that investigation is already on-going, so I guess we'll get more details later, but: does anyone know how the "red light" signal is transmitted? Merely visually to the train "driver", or is there also sound or a dashboard flashing light or something else to alert the engineer?

We had a pretty bad derailment here in California a few months back, where it was found the engineer missed a red-light, including a dashboard buzzer, while he was busy texting on his cellphone (he's in jail now).

[A Very Super Market]

Poor Belgians. It really jumps at you to hear about a head-on collision, brought on only by human negligence.

Still, it's still a far cry from the total chaos that the Indian railroads seem to experience everyday. Or god forbid, Amtrak

[Beskar]

When I heard about this, I was worried about Andres.

[Fragony]

Casualties set back to 18 deaths, hundreds wounded. Knowing more about what happened, full frontal collision, it's a small miracle the cost of life was relatively low, horrible as that may sound.

[Hosakawa Tito]

[QUOTE=KukriKhan;2433594]Glad to hear most of our Belgian contingent is OK; condolences to the victims and families.

That was some intense impact, knocking some carriages off their wheel-frames. I read that investigation is already on-going, so I guess we'll get more details later, but: does anyone know how the "red light" signal is transmitted? Merely visually to the train "driver", or is there also sound or a dashboard flashing light or something else to alert the engineer?

We had a pretty bad derailment here in California a few months back, where it was found the engineer missed a red-light, including a dashboard buzzer, while he was busy texting on his cellphone (he's in jail now).[/QUOTE]

Very sad indeed. Accidents do happen, but lately it seems many are caused by driver distraction. How does one regulate common sense?

[Tellos Athenaios]

In Belgium they have an automated breaking system which causes the train to stop if it ignores a red signal. But this of course depends on the signals working properly.

[Fragony]

Very sad indeed. Accidents do happen, but lately it seems many are caused by driver distraction. How does one regulate common sense?

Schtuff happens so to say. Humans will make mistakes, and if we automate things it's still done by humans. When things like this go bad the consequences are just so horrible. I read the machinist jumped out in time, passenger found him crying besides the track. Really feel sorry for the guy.

[Andres]

Devastating. One of the victims was a 27 year old woman, pregnant (7,5 months) of her first child. She and her husband grew up in the same village, went to the same school and were already lovers when they were teenagers. She took the train to work every day and allthough she was already 7,5 months pregnant, she insisted on keeping working for as long as possible, because she loved her job. For the first time in her career, she had missed her train at 6.30 am and she took one of the fatal trains.

Article in Dutch.

To think that the train she was supposed to take is the same my wife takes every day...

***

Contrary to the first news broadcasts after the accident, the machinist (is that English? it's the guy who drives the train) now claims that he didn't ignore a red light. He claims the light was green, not red. Of course, the media never waits for an investigation and since a couple of hours after the accident, the machinist was accused, trialed and found guilty by the media, they now write that he's probably lying. You can always count on the media to condemn someone without investigation or trial. Who cares about other peoples' sensitivities when condemning someone based on rumours sells more newspapers?

[Fragony]

But your wife is ok, that's what really matters, give her an extra hug tonight. Chance is cruel, that woman is dead but you still have everything.

We hadden haar zo graag eventjes gezien,' zegt haar oom, 'maar ze moet er erg aan toe geweest zijn. (stilte)

'We would have loved to see her, but she must have been messed up pretty bad' (silence)

RIP mrs Demirci + baby, breaks your heart

[drone]

the machinist (is that English? it's the guy who drives the train) now claims that he didn't ignore a red light.

Translated to English, it would probably be "engineer".

[KukriKhan]

In Belgium they have an automated breaking system which causes the train to stop if it ignores a red signal. But this of course depends on the signals working properly.

A BBC-Radio report yesterday said that one train had auto-braking, and one did not, supposedly due to conflicting EU-Belgian safety regs? Wha-a-a-at? It also said it cost about $250K per train engine/car to retrofit an auto-braking system. I'll try to find a link.

[Fragony]

Their system is just 6 months old, they say he ignored a red light, he insists he didn't. If the IT expertise of what these idiots cook up here is something to go on I kinda believe him.