Tragic tangle: Rescue services at the scene of the crash where an express train ploughed into a coachload of German tourists in Hungary yesterday
33 tourists killed as train and bus collide
From Adam LeBor in Siofok
A HUNGARIAN beauty spot was strewn with broken bodies yesterday after an express train ploughed into a bus, killing 33 German tourists and their driver.
A group of bodies lay covered near the site of the impact by Lake Balaton on the outskirts of this town and seats from the bus were flung 200 yards from the accident.
The remains of the bus, slashed in two by the impact, lay partly by the trackside. The rear half of the vehicle, still stuck to the front of the locomotive, was dragged hundreds of yards scattering bodies as it went. Many were burnt beyond recognition.
The Budapest to Nagykanizsa train, travelling at 100km an hour (62mph), slammed into the coach around 9am, as the driver tried to cross a railway line. Tibor Dobson, spokesman for the National Catastrophe Defence Agency said: “The sight is simply awful.”
Rescue workers, firefighters and police mounted an emergency operation, ferrying the dead and injured to hospital.
Local inhabitants rushed out to help. Agnes Schiller, who works in a shop adjoining the railway crossing, said: “I heard a massive bang when the crash happened, and then I saw parts of the bus flying through the air.”
The mangled chassis of the front half of the bus was splayed over the railway line. Scraps of fabric hung in the breeze, while coils of electric wiring spilt out from inside the vehicle. Two seats were suspended in mid-air, still attached to the coach’s body. Police with black plastic sacks searched for remains.
Gyorgy Heizler, the head of the local disaster unit, said that the coach driver had tried to drive across the railway line even though red stop lights had given warning of an oncoming train.
Twenty-nine people were killed in the crash, and five died later in or on the way to hospital. The bus driver was among the dead. The other six passengers were hurt, four seriously. Zoltan Mandoki, the head of Hungary’s national railways, blamed the accident on the coach driver, saying that he had jumped the stop light. “A full investigation is under way, but it looks like it’s the fault of the bus driver,” he said. Mr Mandoki said that the signal lights at the crossing were clearly visible, although there was no barrier.
“There are hundreds of crossings where there are no barriers. We’d like to have them everywhere, but it’s a question of resources,” Mr Mandoki said.
No casualties were reported among passengers on the train. The train driver suffered minor injuries.
Germany’s Foreign Ministry said that it believed the passengers were from the northern states of Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein, but had no further details.
Siofok and Lake Balaton have long been a popular destination for German tourists. Before the collapse of communism in 1989 Lake Balaton was crowded with East and West Germans who found Hungary a congenial and easily accessible place to meet.
Peter Medgyessy, the Hungarian Prime Minister, visited the scene with the German Ambassador. “This may be the most horrific bus accident in Hungary’s history,” he said, adding he had contacted Gerhard Schröder, the German Chancellor, about the crash.
Officials said that a local bus had been hit by a train at the same spot 20 years ago, resulting in fatalities.
