A total of 79 people were injured, three of them seriously, in the collision between two trains in Slovakia on Sunday night, the Ministry of Health reported on Monday. The lives of two of the injured are in danger. The collision occurred 20 kilometers from Bratislava between two passenger trains heading to the Slovakian capital. About 800 people were traveling in the two convoys, mostly students.
This is the second train accident to have occurred in Slovakia in just a month. On October 13, fifty people were injured in the head-on collision of two fast trains in the city of Roznava, in the south-east of the country. Prime Minister Robert Fico has called an emergency government meeting for Monday, at the end of which the adoption of the measures will be announced.
15 ambulances, as well as 60 police officers and 70 firefighters participated in the rescue. Although the causes of the accident have not yet been made public, the state railway company ZSSK reported that one of the trains ran a red light.
“One of the trains was in a place where it should not be. I will not put forward the conclusions of the investigation, but it is clear that that train was running a red light,” said Ivan Bednárik, general director of the ZSSK. That train stopped by mistake and was hit from behind, at a speed of 100 kilometers per hour, by another train traveling on the same track, Bednárik explained.
