63 Die in S. Africa Train Crash; Possibility of Bomb Is Probed

A speeding train filled with black commuters derailed near here Tuesday, and 63 people died when the cars smashed into a wooded hill. A railway investigator was trying to determine if a bomb sent the train off the tracks.

A thunderstorm burst as workers using cranes completed the grisly 12-hour task of lifting the eight derailed coaches. Bodies had been found throughout the sweltering day, but officials said they did not expect to find any more dead.

About 370 people were injured in the crash, the worst train accident in South Africa since 1965.

The train was approaching a station outside this eastern port city, about 350 miles southeast of Johannesburg, at about 5:20 a.m. when all but two of its 10 cars derailed. Rail officials said there were about 800 commuters on board, most of them black, traveling from the Kato Ridge suburb into Durban.

Survivors and witnesses said the train seemed to have been traveling too fast, but sabotage was considered a possibility, given the pervasive violence in the run-up to April’s all-race elections--a vote that will end white-minority rule and probably put the African National Congress in power.

Police have blamed pro-apartheid whites for bombings this year of ANC and government targets, including railway tracks. Blacks also have been blamed for some terrorist attacks.

Throughout the day, rescue workers struggled to carry victims yards across steep terrain to ambulances. Helicopters and a military plane were called in to help transport people to hospitals.

Police hauled bloody handbags, shoes, food and severed limbs from the wreckage as shocked survivors and spectators watched from the surrounding hills.

Hundreds of onlookers became angry. One man berated a policeman who stuffed four bodies into a police van. Others began chanting “Viva!”--a cry heard at ANC rallies--and singing protest songs.

Passengers and witnesses said the train appeared to be traveling far too quickly before it derailed.

“The driver was going like hell on all the bends,” one survivor told the South African Press Assn.

A low-ranking ANC official, Sithunywa Dube, demanded an independent inquiry into the accident, saying he was convinced it was politically motivated.

Some survivors claimed that the train’s white engineer threatened passengers before the crash that they would never reach their destination, said Dube, who was translating for Zulu-speaking survivors.