Indonesia police confirm 2 dead in train collision

Indonesia police confirm 2 dead in train collision
Fri Jan 23, 2009 7:08am EST
(Recasts with police on the scene)

SURABAYA, Indonesia, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Two people were killed and four seriously injured after a passenger train and a cargo train collided in Indonesia's East Java province, a police official at the scene said on Friday. The passenger train was travelling from East Java's capital, Surabaya, to Semarang in Central Java when the collision took place at Kapas station in the Bojonegore district.

"Two people died instantly, a locomotive engineer and his assistant from the cargo train. Their bodies have been taken to hospital, while four other people from the Rajawali passenger train are badly injured," Tabitha Resley, police chief of Kapas, told Reuters.

Earlier, Metro TV reported at least two deaths and a hundred injured, while a rail official said 10 had been injured.

Sugeng Priyono, a spokesman in the Surabaya office of Indonesian Railways, said the accident took place on a rail intersection.

Train crashes and other transport incidents are relatively frequent in Indonesia, where infrastructure is often shoddy and struggles to keep pace with population and economic growth.

(Additional reporting by Telly Nathalia in Jakarta)

(Reporting by Heri Retnowati; Writing by Ed Davies; Editing by Sugita Katyal)


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