Crowded Cuba Train Derails, Killing 56 and Injuring 240

A crowded Cuban passenger train traveling from Havana to the eastern city of Guantanamo derailed in darkness early Saturday, killing 56 people and injuring about 240, Cuba’s Transport Ministry said.

The locomotive and several cars of the Havana-Guantanamo night train jumped the track while riding on the central rail line across the island. Damaged stretches of tracks may have caused the accident.

The accident occurred about 4 a.m. near the village of Manacas in central Villa Clara province, 140 miles east of Havana.

Cuban television showed bloodstained and bandaged passengers being taken to the hospital in stretchers. It also showed footage of buckled rail carriages heaped around the track at Manacas.

The Transport Ministry said it is opening an official investigation.

Late last year, transport authorities consolidated train services to cope with nationwide shortages of fuel, the result of disrupted oil supplies from the Soviet Union.

They combined some services and added extra carriages to long-distance trains traveling to the east of the island. A cutback in national bus services due to the fuel shortages probably also put extra pressure on the train network, diplomats in Havana said.

It was Cuba’s worst rail crash. Two train accidents in August, 1989, left 52 people dead and injured more than 300. The Communist government moved to tighten safety regulations on the rail network, and several senior rail officials were disciplined.