(Tunis) Nearly 100 people were injured Monday, most slightly, in a collision between two trains in the south of the capital Tunis, said Civil Defense.
Posted at 7:46 a.m.
“The collision between two trains left 95 injured who were taken to hospitals,” Civil Defense spokesman Moez Treaa told AFP, adding that one of the trains was carrying passengers while the second was empty.
According to the spokesman, most of the injured suffer from broken bones or bruises or are in a state of shock, but no serious cases are to be deplored.
Fifteen ambulances and other emergency vehicles were mobilized to the scene of the accident.
The collision between the two trains of the National Society of Tunisian Railways (SNCFT) took place around 9:30 a.m. local time (4:30 a.m. EDT) in Jbel Jelloud, in the southern suburbs of the capital. Its causes were not immediately known.
An AFP correspondent on the spot saw the front of the driver’s cabin of one of the trains partially gutted.
The collision took place minutes before the scheduled arrival of two commuter trains heading for Tunis Central Station.
In December 2016, five people were killed and more than 50 injured in the same area in a collision between a public transport bus and a train, due to faulty infrastructure.
In June 2015, Tunisia experienced one of the most serious rail dramas in its recent history, with the death of 18 people in an accident between a train and a truck in El Fahes, about sixty km south of Tunis. The collision was caused by a signaling fault at the level crossing.