Collision between two trams leaves around 50 injured

Two trams collided in the tunnel under Strasbourg station on Saturday afternoon, an extremely rare accident which left several dozen injured.

Firefighters reported around fifty injuries, all minor, and around a hundred people unhurt. The prosecution announced that it had opened an investigation into unintentional injuries, which aims to “determine the causes of the accident and highlight possible criminal responsibilities”. “The first investigations made it possible to rule out the hypothesis of a voluntary act,” said the interim public prosecutor, Alexandre Chevrier.

A large security perimeter was established in front of the station, where numerous ambulances took up position. Injured people were evacuated on stretchers and others were taken care of under the station’s glass roof. A video from a witness on social media shows a chaotic scene just after the accident with two trams seriously damaged in the tunnel at the station. One of the trams appears to have derailed due to the impact.

“What we know at this stage is that there was a brutal collision between two trams, on the platform, under the station,” declared environmentalist mayor Jeanne Barseghian, who was quickly on site. “It was a frontal impact following a tram reversing, the causes of which I do not know,” she added. The accident occurred shortly before 4:00 p.m.

“We don’t know why – human error, material problem, all that has to be verified – (the tram) did not manage to stay stuck and therefore started to move backwards,” detailed the president of the Company of Strasbourg Transport (CTS), Patrick Maciejewski.

“The tram backed up, the tram left at full speed towards the station, and all of a sudden, coming back, heading back towards the station, we realized that there was already another tram which was returned to the station. This tram was stopped, thank God,” testified Romaric Koumba, a passenger on one of the damaged trains. “When the tram collided with the other, the doors flew off,” he added.

“We have around fifty relative emergencies with non-vital injuries, scalp wounds, one or two collarbone fractures, a sprained knee, things like that. Especially traumatology,” explained Controller General René Cellier, director of the Bas-Rhin fire and rescue service. “We don’t have an absolute emergency, it could have been much more serious,” he further stressed.

“I was in the tram at the stop, there was a tram which came in reverse at full speed, there was a problem with the brakes and it rolled down the slope in reverse at Les Halles (the next stop , Editor’s note) to the central station. We heard a big big shock, a big boom,” Johan, a direct witness to the collision, who did not wish to give his last name, told the press. “The accident occurred in the worst place on the network, in a tunnel, and in a very dense area since it is under the square in front of Strasbourg station,” notes Julien Joly, transport consultant at Wavestone.