Train Derails in Cuba, Killing 14, Injuring 74
A crowded passenger train derailed and overturned in central Cuba, killing 14 people and injuring 74 others and closing the country’s main railway line, officials said Wednesday.
The engine of train No. 11, which was heading from Havana to eastern Cuba, jumped the rails and crashed Tuesday night, pulling five passenger cars and a freight wagon onto their sides, witnesses said.
Most of the dead were traveling in the first passenger coach, which hit a concrete structure that sliced through the length of the car.
“It was terrible. We heard a noise. Then we crashed, and everything was dark,” the train’s mechanic, Orlando Olivera, said.
The engine driver was killed in the accident, Olivera said. The mechanic said it was the seventh accident he had been in and he was quitting his job because Cuba’s old railway tracks had become too risky.
The train was traveling to the eastern city of Santiago when the accident occurred outside Coliseo, about 30 miles east of the port city of Matanzas.
Authorities said they had not determined the cause.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
