Thirty-five people were injured, most of them slightly, when two passenger trains collided in Prague on Wednesday morning, September 18, emergency services and Czech railway companies said.
“One of the trains ran a red light and hit a stationary train from behind,” Dusan Gavenda, spokesman for the railway infrastructure company Sprava Zeleznic, told AFP. Prague emergency services said they treated 35 injured people.
“There were minor and moderate injuries, but no one’s life was in danger,” said Prague emergency services spokeswoman Jana Postova. There were “bruises and abrasions, but we also recorded several fractures, including a broken jaw.”
Firefighters reported on X that they had evacuated around 200 people. According to the police, one of the drivers tested positive on a breathalyzer and is due to undergo blood tests.
Czech Railways, the national rail operator, acknowledged that the driver tested positive, but said he probably did not cause the accident.
“According to the available information, the accident was not the fault of our train driver,” Czech Railways wrote on X, adding that the man would be fired if the blood test confirmed he was drunk. The other train was operated by the KZC railway company, according to the Czech news agency CTK.
Train accidents are not uncommon in the Czech Republic, an EU member state with a population of 10.9 million. In June, four people were killed and more than 20 injured when an express train collided head-on with a freight train in the central city of Pardubice.
