Six dead, more than forty injured in Eurocity train crash in Moravia

Six people have died and more than forty are reported injured in a train crash in the eastern part of the Czech Republic. The accident happened at approximately 10:30 am on Friday, some 20 km south of the city of Ostrava, when a Prague-bound Eurocity train from Krakow, in Poland, hit fallen debris from an overhead bridge which had collapsed onto the railway tracks. A fatal 10-minute delay of the Eurocity train EC 108 Comenius from Krakow to Prague was the indirect cause of one of the worst train accidents in the country’s recent history. As the express train approached a section of the railway line near the town of Studénka, in northern Moravia, the train driver saw parts of an overhead bridge sway and collapse before his eyes. At the time he could only pull the brake and lower the train’s speed from 140 km per hour to 120.... [read full story]