Brazzaville, June 24: The death toll for a train derailment in the Congo Republic has risen to 76, Red Cross and hospital sources said on Wednesday.
“The definitive toll from the train accident as established by the crisis commission and the Red Cross stands at 76 dead and 745 injured,” state radio in Brazzaville announced, according to Reuters.
Part of a passenger train plunged into a valley while speeding around a corner on a dangerous rail link between the coastal town of Pointe-Noire and the capital Brazzaville late on Monday.
Congolese President Denis Sassou Nguesso travelled to Pointe-Noire on Wednesday.
A lack of roads linking the main towns has made the train line a favored means of transport for Congolese, and carriages are often overcrowded with travelers.
In September 1991 a collision on the same line left 100 dead and 300 wounded in Congo’s worst rail tragedy ever.
Joseph Sauveur El Bez, the head of the Chemin de fer Congo-ocean (CFCO) railway company, which runs the train, said the collision happened due to driver error but acknowledged that the high death toll was “because the train was overloaded. There were too many passengers.”
——–Agencies