A train driver was killed and dozens of passengers injured Tuesday evening when a passenger train hit a stationary freight train near Prague. "Unfortunately, we have learned that there is one dead," Transport Minister Karel Havlicek said on public television.
According to the emergency services, it is the driver of the passenger train which had more than a hundred people on board. "He was found lifeless in his destroyed cabin," says their website. Karel Havlicek went on to say on Czech radio that the driver had likely ignored a red light.
Ten seriously injured
The accident occurred shortly after 9:30 p.m. Tuesday near the town of Cesky Brod, located some 30 km east of Prague on a widely used rail link between Prague and the east of the country.
Two of the injured are seriously injured, the minister said. According to the emergency services, eight other seriously injured and 25 more lightly injured people were hospitalized.
Last week, two people were killed and around 20 others injured in a railway accident, which occurred on July 7 between two regional trains near Karlovy Vary some 120 km west of Prague, near the German border. Several other minor incidents were reported the same week on the Czech railways.