Four dead and dozens injured in Czech train crash | Transport news

A train with around 300 people on board was heading towards western Ukraine when it collided with an oncoming freight train.

Four people were killed and more than two dozen injured when a passenger train collided with a freight train in the Czech city of Pardubice, about 100 kilometers east of the capital Prague.

The head-on collision occurred after 11 p.m. (21:00 GMT) on Wednesday as the train carrying more than 300 passengers was heading east toward Ukraine, officials said.

“I can confirm that four people suffered life-threatening injuries,” Alena Kisiala, a spokeswoman for local emergency services, told Czech television.

The train was on its way from Prague to the western Ukrainian city of Chop, near the border with Slovakia. Many of the passengers were foreigners. Of the 24 injured, three are said to be in serious condition.

Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala expressed his condolences on social media platform X for what he called a “great disaster.”

“We are all thinking of the victims and injured,” he wrote.

Dozens of police, fire and rescue units were dispatched to the scene to help evacuate passengers from the train cars.

Footage published on the news website idnes.cz showed at least one carriage had derailed, while other photos suggested that the front of the train had been dented.

Traffic between Prague and the smaller cities of Brno and Ostrava was halted for several hours.

Czech television quoted a fire department spokesman as saying that the freight train was carrying the industrial chemical calcium carbide. However, the first two wagons were empty, so there was no leak.

Investigations into the cause of the collision are currently ongoing.