A subway train that derailed near Rotterdam in the Netherlands on Monday miraculously landed on the sculpture of a giant whale tail, saving it from disaster.
Instead of crashing into the water ten meters below, the leading oar, after smashing through a stop sign, ended up suspended spectacularly in the air, perched on the silver tail of a metal cetacean.
The metro driver, who was alone on board, escaped unharmed from the accident which occurred shortly after midnight in Spijkenisse.
As if by a sign of fate, the artwork is titled "Saved by the Whale's Tail".
"It's such a strange scenario," responded Carly Gorter of the Rijnmond safety authority, the Rotterdam region.
“The metro derailed and landed on a monument called Saved by the Whale's Tail.
This is literally what happened […].
It's incredible, ”she told AFP.
The sculpture, consisting of two giant whale tails emerging from the water, was erected in a park located under the skytrain.
The architect who designed it, Maarten Struijs, said he was impressed that his work could support the weight of the train.
"If this tail was not so strong, or not placed so low, then the metro conductor would have plunged from a height of ten meters and I do not think he would have survived", explained the architect, for which the subway suspended in the air is in itself a kind of work of art.
“I could never have imagined it that way,” he told Dutch public broadcaster NOS.