Five people were killed and six others were injured in two railway accidents in Hanoi, and Ha Nam and Nghe An provinces yesterday, local police reported.

The scene of the railway accident that killed a man in Hanoi's Dong Anh District yesterday, Photo: Tien Phong

At 10:30 am, the driver of a 29-seat bus that had departed from Bac Giang province stopped his vehicle close to a railway in Ha Nam’s Binh Luc District for his passengers to relieve themselves.

When the passengers were crossing the railway to get back to the bus, a train coded SE13 that was running southward at a rather high speed from Hanoi crashed into them, killing three people, including 26-year-old Nguyen Quyet Tien, 55-year-old Hoang Thi Ngan, Tien’s mother, and Hoang Van Hung, 59, Tien’s uncle. 

Nguyen Van Binh, deputy general director of the Hanoi Railway Passenger Transportation Corporation, came to the scene to handle the case.

“The driver parked the bus at a location that blocked the victims’ view of the coming train when they walked back to the vehicle,” Binh commented.

Local police are investigating the case.

A couple of hours earlier, Nguyen The D., 25, was hit and killed by a train coded TN11 when he was crossing the railway track in Dien Truong Commune, Dien Chau District, Nghe An Province, Tien Phong newspaper reported.  

In Hanoi, a 16-seat bus collided with a train coded SB4 on the Yen Vien-Lao Cai railway route in Dong Anh District at 4:30 am, killing 44-year-old Nguyen Van Thai, the bus driver, on the scene and injured 6 passengers.

The victims were taken to Viet Duc Hospital for emergency treatment and doctors said four of them were in critical condition.

Lieutenant Colonel Tran Van Tru, head of the traffic police team in Dong Anh, said the collision might have happened because the crossing arms had not been lowered down in time before the bus entered the railway crossing.

Police are continuing their investigation to determine whether the railway watcher on duty had failed to put down the rail-crossing barriers.

Source: Tuoitrenews