Strasbourg: collision between two trams left 68 injured

The collision of two trams on Saturday in a tunnel under Strasbourg station in eastern France, an extremely rare accident, left 68 injured, according to a final report released on Sunday by the authorities.

The accident left 68 injured “in relative emergency”, indicated the prefecture of the Bas-Rhin department of which Strasbourg is the capital. Around a hundred people escaped unharmed from this collision.

According to the first elements of the investigation, one of the trams went down a slope in reverse, hitting another train which was stationary.

The tram, which had to stop before the next station due to a traffic jam on the tracks, went backwards for a still unknown reason and rolled down the slope leading to the station.

A video obtained by AFP showed badly damaged trains, the ends of the colliding trams heavily depressed, and passengers on the ground on the station platform.

Criminal responsibilities

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 hypothesis of a voluntary act is ruled out.

Tram traffic at the station has been interrupted and will not resume for several days, said the Compagnie des transports strasbourgeois (CTS).

“We don’t know why – human error, material problem, all that needs to be verified – (the tram) did not manage to stay stuck (at a stop) and therefore started to move backwards” in a slope, detailed the president of the Compagnie des transports strasbourgeois (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.

The victims have trauma-related injuries, “wounds to the scalp, one or two fractures of the clavicle, a sprained knee,” the director of the fire and rescue service of the Bas-Rhin department detailed on Saturday. , René Cellier.

“We don’t have an absolute emergency, it could have been much more serious,” he further stressed.

“He rolled down the slope in reverse”

“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.

“The collision of two trams to my knowledge is rather rare, it happens very rarely,” the expert explains to AFP, according to whom most tram accidents are collisions with vehicles.

“But we can reassure users: it is a fairly safe mode of transport because a tram travels at a maximum of 70 km/h in areas without obstacles. And in the city center the speed is limited to a maximum of 30 km/h in Strasbourg. So it remains a safe mode of transport,” adds Mr. Joly.

Strasbourg is one of the first large French cities to have put a tram network back into service in 1994 and had already experienced an accident, in exactly the same place, at the end of October 1998. A tram had already collided with another in the tunnel under the station , an accident due to excessive speed of one of the two trains which left 17 injured.

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