Belgium probes deadly train crash

SAINT-GEORGES-SUR-MEUSE, Belgium — Investigators worked through the wreckage of a high speed train crash in eastern Belgium on Monday that killed at least three people and injured nine others. A fast-moving passenger train late Sunday slammed violently into the back of a slow-moving freight train that was traveling on the same track for reasons that remain unexplained. Authorities said lightning and flood damage caused by heavy storms that affected all of western Europe in the past few days were being explored as a possible cause. Investigators were on the scene, but a spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office in Liege warned that finding the cause “would be difficult.” Nine passengers were injured to varying degrees with some described as being in a critical condition by authorities during a press briefing There were roughly 40 passengers on board the train that was traveling at about 100 km an hour at the moment of the collision. Investigators believe the passenger train rammed into the freight train that was traveling at about 10-15 km an hour, said Brigitte Leroy, a spokeswoman from the prosecutor’s office. The train was traveling from the west to the east of Belgium on the Namur-Liege line when the accident occurred in the municipality of Saint-Georges-sur-Meuse at 11:00 pm (2100 GMT). The crash killed the driver of the passenger train, authorities said. “The passenger train is really in a bad way, it’s stunning,” said Francis Dejon, mayor of Saint-Georges-sur-Meuse who had been following rescue operations. — AFP