TUNIS | Nearly 100 people were injured Monday, most lightly, in a collision between two trains in the south of the capital Tunis.
The causes of the accident were not immediately known and no comment could be obtained from the Tunisian National Railway Company (SNCFT).
“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 suffered from broken bones or bruises or were in a state of shock, but no serious cases were reported.
About fifteen ambulances and other emergency vehicles were mobilized to the scene of the accident in Jbel Jelloud, in the southern suburbs of the capital.
The collision took place around 09:30 local time (08:30 GMT), a few minutes before the scheduled arrival of two commuter trains heading for Tunis central station.
An AFP correspondent on the spot saw the driver’s cabin of one of the trains partially gutted and the interior of a damaged wagon.
Faulty infrastructure
Transport Minister Rabi Majidi visited the scene of the accident but did not make statements to the press.
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.
Following this accident, the CEO of SNCFT, Sabiha Derbal, was dismissed after the president at the time, Béji Caïd Essebsi, asked to “define responsibilities”.
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.
Nearly a thousand people die each year on the roads of Tunisia, a country of 11.7 million inhabitants.
In 2021, road accidents killed 980 and injured more than 6,500, according to the National Road Safety Observatory (Onsr) under the Ministry of the Interior.
Between 2017 and 2021, Tunisia recorded 173 train accidents which left a total of 229 dead and 345 injured, Achraf Yehyaoui, spokesman for the Tunisian Association for Road Prevention, a government body, told AFP on Monday. .