TAIWAN’s president has pressed for a quick, transparent probe into the cause of the island’s worst train crash in nearly three decades.
Crash investigators are examining the wreckage after the eight-car Puyuma Express ran off the tracks in Yilan County as it went around a bend where the maximum speed is 47 mph.
Video footage showed the train striking and toppling a beam and ripping down metal structures from above the tracks as it crashed.
Eighteen people were killed and 187 injured in the crash that left most of the cars damaged and five overturned in a zig-zag pattern around the tracks. Rescuers searched through the night for more victims before work crews moved the derailed cars upright to assist the investigation.
“Everyone cares a lot about the cause of the accident,” Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-wen said in a statement from her office.
“Therefore we request that the investigating departments must as soon as possible make clear the timing and situation of the whole accident from start to finish and be able to give citizens a report.”
Five people were killed, including a nine-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl from the same family. Three students and two teachers who died were from the same school.
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