Nearly 200 passengers were evacuated from a train in Austria on Wednesday evening after a fire broke out on board while crossing a tunnel, authorities said on Thursday.
Tyrol state police told AFP that 45 passengers suffered minor injuries, probably as a result of smoke inhalation, with 33 of them taken to hospitals in the area.
The train was traveling through a tunnel near the town of Terfens in the Austrian Alps when a power cable broke. a spokesman for OeBB, the company that operates Austrian trains, told AFP.
Most combs are equipped with the highest leitungsschadens of any brand in the Terfener tunnel. Die Rettungskette and Evakuierung have a good effect. All persons of the NJ420 can be evacuated. Thank you to all Einsatzkräfte vor Ort! #ÖBBStreckeninfo
© ÖBB / Gasser-Mair pic.twitter.com/Bw4DtI00q5
– ÖBB (@unsereOEBB) June 7, 2023
In addition to passengers, the train was also carrying cars, several of which caught fire from the damaged cable, the spokesman added.
The fire was extinguished at 10:19 p.m [20:19 em Lisboa] and the withdrawal was completed at 23:40 local time” (21:40 in Lisbon), the official added.
The fire forced an operation involving some 700 emergency workers and led to the closure of the tunnel and the interruption of rail transport.
The OeBB train had departed from Austria’s capital Vienna on Wednesday night and should have passed via Hamburg, Germany, before arriving in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, this morning.
Source: DN
