A faulty rail joint is being blamed for yesterday's French train crash that left six people dead and 30 injured.
As rescue workers continued to search the wreckage of the intercity express for survivors, rail officials pinpointed a loose connector as the most likely cause of the crash.
It came as police reported looters trying to steal from the bodies of victims who were electrocuted or crushed to death.
The packed train came off the rails and hit a platform, overturning carriages, as it travelled through Bretigny-sur-Orge station in central France.
Officials said it was impossible to know if there were more people trapped until the overturned carriages were lifted.
“The fear is that victims may still be trapped in the wreckage,” said a French railways manager at the scene.
A police spokesman described groups of locals “picking through the wreckage” last night.
“It appeared at first they were trying to help, but it soon became clear that they were taking personal property away.
"When police approached they threw stones before running away.”
The crash site, about 16 miles from the centre of Paris, is surrounded by wasteland used as a temporary camp for homeless people.
The six carriage train, which left Paris with 385 passengers on board, crashed about 20 minutes into a scheduled three hour journey to Limoges.
It was travelling at 85mph, below the 93mph speed limit.
Accident investigators were yesterday focussing attention on a switching system which guides trains one track to another.
They found one joint in the switch had disconnected from its normal position.
The steel plate connector had worked its way loose and become detached at points about 200 yards from the station, causing the train to derail.
The investigation is expected to focus on how the piece of metal had become detached.
Checks on 50,000 similar components across the French rail network will be now be carried out.
Pierre Izard, an official with the national rial company SNCF, told a press conference: “It moved into the centre of the switch and in this position it prevented the normal passege of the train’s wheels and it may have caused the derailment.”
He said investigators were looking into how this happened when another train had travelled over the same spot only 30 minutes before.
In addition, they were trying to work out why the third carriage was the first to derail.
Transport Minister Frederic Cuvillier yesterday ruled out human error for the disaster.
He said: “Fortunately, the driver of the locomotive had absolutely extraordinary reflexes in that he sounded the alarm immediately, preventing a collision with another train coming in the opposite direction and which would have hit the derailing carriages within seconds. So it is not a human problem.”
Passengers and officials in train stations across France today held a minute’s silence at noon to commemorate those who died.
The accident happened on one of the busiest weekends with the country celebrating Bastille Day tomorrow.
British student Marvin Khareem Wone was among those on another train when the train ploughed into the station.
He said: “The train went off the railway - it just went on the platform and kind of flew in the air for a second and went upside down.
“The first and the second coach were completely destroyed. I really thought no-one could survive that because it was completely mashed up.
“Everyone was crying and running everywhere. A woman was crying for her daughter who was still on the train."
Saturday 13 July 2013
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/france-train-crash-looters-picking-2050956
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