Train crash: Call for probe

2003-10-24 15:11

Cape Town - A board of inquiry must be set up to investigate Friday's train crash at Cape Town station and the findings must be made public as soon as they had been finalised, the Democratic Alliance said.

The accident happened when the sixth train carrying morning commuters from Wellington overshot the platform shortly after 08:00.

The train smashed through the wall behind the buffers and came to a halt behind shops in the main concourse.

Twenty-eight commuters and the driver of the train, a woman, were injured.

Most of the commuters, including the train driver, were being treated for slight to very slight injuries at the Christiaan Barnard Memorial Hospital in Cape Town.

Metrorail spokesperson Riana Jacobs said 14 of the injured were able to walk unaided while six others with slight injuries were taken away on stretchers. The remainder were treated for shock.

The cause of the accident has still to be determined but a caller to a Cape Town radio station said she had just alighted from a Simon's Town train and was walking along the platform when she heard a train coming.

"I looked to my right and I thought 'that train is not going to stop'.

"It didn't even appear to be braking. It just went straight through the wall. There were sparks flying."

DA spokesperson on transport Stuart Farrow said Friday's train accident was the sixth involving passenger trains in less than two years.

He said Metrorail and transport and public enterprises must be held to account.

"They must make a full disclosure of all the findings of inquiries into previous accidents," Farrow said.

"In addition, they must explain what steps have been taken to address the identified problems."

He said the DA had repeatedly raised concerns about the condition of the country's rail infrastructure, particularly the archaic signal system and aging rolling stock.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) also criticised Metrorail and said the accidents were related to the rolling stock and trains being old.

"This could be the main cause for the failures in the system," Cosatu's provincial secretary Tony Ehrenreich said.

He called on the government and the transport ministry to spend "the same amount of money on trains as they do on a fleet of airplanes".

He said the transport requirements of working families must be treated as urgently as the transport requirements of the wealthy who travelled on airplanes.

Ehrenreich said the trade union federation would support those injured in the accident in their claims against Metrorail for compensation.

The City of Cape Town Disaster Management Centre said platforms 7 to 9 would remain closed for the rest of the weekend as structural engineers assessed the situation.

- SAPA