Train derailment kills at least 75 in DR Congo

KINSHASA－At least 75 people were killed and 125 others injured following the derailment of a freight train in the southeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, said local authorities on Sunday.

The derailment of the 15-wagon train took place late on Thursday in the Lubudi district of DRC's southeastern Lualaba province, said Fabien Mutomb, director-general of the National Railway Company of Congo, or SNCC, on Sunday.

According to the Congolese Ministry of Communication and Media, the train lost control before several wagons ended up in a ravine due to a locomotive traction failure. The ministry did not provide further details.

Officials on Saturday gave a toll of 60 adults and children killed in the accident.

The new toll came as Mutomb visited the site with a team assembled to investigate the disaster.

Of the 125 people injured, 28 were in critical condition, said the communications ministry.

Rail officials have not said what caused the crash, but investigators will be looking into the condition of the track.

Deodat Kapenda, the province's interior minister who was among those who visited the site, said in a statement on Sunday evening that the accident appeared to have been caused by a sudden loss of traction.

Mutomb, in his statement, said one possible cause might have been the overloading of the train because people illegally hitched a ride on it.

"Measures will be taken to ensure that this kind of incident does not happen again," he said, adding that those responsible will be punished.

The train had been coming from Luena in a neighboring province destined for the mining town of Tenke when the accident happened.

It derailed at 11:50 pm on Thursday at the village of Buyofwe, with seven of its wagons plunging into a ravine.

It was carrying several hundred stowaways at the time, said Manyonga Ndambo speaking by phone from Lubumbashi.

People regularly jump onto freight trains to travel across the vast country because of the lack of passenger trains and the difficulties of traveling by road.

Overloaded wagons

Train derailments are common in the DRC, as are shipwrecks of overloaded boats on the country's lakes and rivers.

According to a database maintained by AFP, last week's accident was the deadliest in the world over the last two years and the third-worst accident in Africa over the last decade.

The last accident of this kind in the DRC happened in 2014 when a good train on which several hundred people were aboard derailed at Katongola in the southeast region of Katanga, killing 136 people.

Agencies - Xinhua