Lubumbashi, DR Congo | AFP | At least 60 people died in the early hours of Friday due to the derailment of a train in the Kolwezi region, in the southeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, local sources and the public railway company said on Saturday.
At this time, “the balance is 61 dead, men, women and children” and “52 evacuated wounded,” Marc Manyonga Ndambo, director of infrastructure for the National Railway Company of the Congo (SNCC), told AFP. by phone from Lubumbashi.
It was a freight train, carrying “several hundred clandestine travelers.”
“Some bodies would still be trapped inside the fallen wagons in the ravines,” Ndambo added.
For their part, cited by the Congolese media, the governor of the province, Fifi Masuka, and the administrator of the territory where the accident occurred, Clementine Lutanga, reported a provisional figure of 60 dead.
The train, made up of 15 wagons – 12 of them empty – came from the town of Luena, in the neighboring province of Haut-Lomami, and was headed for the mining town of Tenke, near Kolwezi, Ndambo said.
The railway derailed in the town of Buyofwe, about 200 kilometers from Kolwezi, in an area with many ravines, where 7 of the 15 wagons fell, said the head of the transport company.
“My team is working hard to clear the tracks until Monday,” added Ndambo, without offering details of the reasons for the accident, although the poor condition of the rails could be one of the causes.
Train derailments are frequent in this African country, as are the sinking of overloaded ships in lakes and rivers.
Often, in the absence of passenger trains or passable roads, passengers take freight railways for long-distance journeys.
