Trains collide near Jakarta, killing seven, injuring dozens
> Bekasi (Indonesia) (AFP) – Rescuers were racing to reach survivors Tuesday morning outside Indonesia's capital Jakarta after two trains collided overnight, killing at least seven people and injuring dozens.
> Anna Purba, a spokeswoman for the state-owned KAI rail company, told local television in the early morning hours that seven people had been killed in the crash and 81 were injured.
>
>She said rescuers were working to get to two people still trapped, alive, in the wreckage.
>
>One survivor told AFP of the horrific moments after a long-distance train slammed into the stationary commuter train she was in, trapping people inside mangled carriages.
>
>"I thought I was going to die," Sausan Sarifah, 29, told AFP from her bed at the RSUD Bekasi hospital where she was admitted with a broken arm and a deep cut to one thigh.
>
>She was on her way home from work, she said, when her train stopped at the Bekasi Timur station some 25 kilometres (15 miles) from Jakarta.
>
>"It all happened so fast, in a split second," Sausan recounted.
>
>"There were two announcements from the commuter train. Everyone was ready to get off, and then suddenly there was the sound of the locomotive, really loud," she said.
>
>"There was no time to get out, and everyone ended up piled up inside the train, crushed on top of one another. I don’t know how the person underneath me is doing."
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>She said she had feared suffocating to death in the human pile-up, and worried that some pinned underneath didn't make it.
>
>"Thank God I was on top, so I could be evacuated quickly," said Sausan.
>
>According to Franoto Wibowo, a spokesman for rail operator KAI, a taxi appears to have clipped the commuter train on a level crossing, causing it to come to a standstill on the tracks, where it was hit.
>
>At the station, chaotic scenes unfolded in the aftermath of the crash, with rescue workers shouting for oxygen tanks as ambulances stood by in a snaking queue, lights flashing.
>
>An AFP reporter at the scene witnessed people being carried out of the wreckage on gurneys and loaded into waiting ambulances as hundreds of bystanders looked on, some seemingly in shock.
>
>As rescuers worked to free many more trapped in the crushed train carriages, deputy house speaker Sufmi Dasco Ahmad said the toll could rise.
>
>"Judging from the evacuation process that is still under way, it is possible that the number of victims may continue to rise," he told reporters at the scene.
>
>Franoto told Kompas TV the military, fire brigade, the national search and rescue agency, and the Red Cross were aiding in the evacuation effort.
...
> Anna Purba, a spokeswoman for the state-owned KAI rail company, told local television in the early morning hours that seven people had been killed in the crash and 81 were injured.
>
>She said rescuers were working to get to two people still trapped, alive, in the wreckage.
>
>One survivor told AFP of the horrific moments after a long-distance train slammed into the stationary commuter train she was in, trapping people inside mangled carriages.
>
>"I thought I was going to die," Sausan Sarifah, 29, told AFP from her bed at the RSUD Bekasi hospital where she was admitted with a broken arm and a deep cut to one thigh.
>
>She was on her way home from work, she said, when her train stopped at the Bekasi Timur station some 25 kilometres (15 miles) from Jakarta.
>
>"It all happened so fast, in a split second," Sausan recounted.
>
>"There were two announcements from the commuter train. Everyone was ready to get off, and then suddenly there was the sound of the locomotive, really loud," she said.
>
>"There was no time to get out, and everyone ended up piled up inside the train, crushed on top of one another. I don’t know how the person underneath me is doing."
>
>She said she had feared suffocating to death in the human pile-up, and worried that some pinned underneath didn't make it.
>
>"Thank God I was on top, so I could be evacuated quickly," said Sausan.
>
>According to Franoto Wibowo, a spokesman for rail operator KAI, a taxi appears to have clipped the commuter train on a level crossing, causing it to come to a standstill on the tracks, where it was hit.
>
>At the station, chaotic scenes unfolded in the aftermath of the crash, with rescue workers shouting for oxygen tanks as ambulances stood by in a snaking queue, lights flashing.
>
>An AFP reporter at the scene witnessed people being carried out of the wreckage on gurneys and loaded into waiting ambulances as hundreds of bystanders looked on, some seemingly in shock.
>
>As rescuers worked to free many more trapped in the crushed train carriages, deputy house speaker Sufmi Dasco Ahmad said the toll could rise.
>
>"Judging from the evacuation process that is still under way, it is possible that the number of victims may continue to rise," he told reporters at the scene.
>
>Franoto told Kompas TV the military, fire brigade, the national search and rescue agency, and the Red Cross were aiding in the evacuation effort.
...