DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: Congo train crash death toll expected to rise

Rescue workers have abandoned hope of finding more survivors over four days after a train crash killed at least 100 people in a remote part of Democratic Republic of Congo. Bodies lay crushed between eight freight cars that jumped the tracks on Wednesday (August 1) night near a bridge over the Kakenge River, some 170 kilometres (105 miles) north-west of Kananga, capital of Western Kasai province. Workers wearing rags over their faces to protect against the overpowering stench of decomposing corpses continued to work on Sunday (August 5) to clear the tracks. But cranes needed to lift the heavy wagons have yet to arrive and rescuers fear the death toll will climb when the cars are removed, revealing more bodies trapped beneath. The dead had been riding illegally on the roof or in between carriages of the freight train when the accident happened. "The train was going too fast. I was on the roof of a wagon and then the derailment happened, the wagons fell over and I was saved by God's grace," Michel Muakambolo, one of the survivors. Medical staff who arrived soon after the crash, which Congolese rail officials say was caused by a brake failure, said many victims had died due to lack of medical supplies and the remoteness of the site. Many of the dead have already been buried at a site not far from the crash. Some medical supplies donated by foreign relief agencies were initially sent from Kananga by helicopter. But several tonnes of medicine and medical equipment took three days to arrive from the distant capital, Kinshasa. Derailments are a regular occurrence and fatal accidents are common in Congo. The government says they were already working to improve the country's railway sector before the accident occurred. "The railroads will remain government property, but there will be a kind of joint management with the private sector. This is the reform we are currently undertaking," says Kuseyo Gatanga Remy Henri, the country's Minister of Transport. But Henri Mutombo, an engine driver, says the country's rail system is in crisis: "The workers are not motivated. Twenty-eight months without being paid, twenty-eight months without a salary and all the machines are worn out, they are not maintained," he said. The central African nation has few paved roads outside the capital and many Congolese have no choice but to continue relying on trains as the only affordable way of crossing the vast interior. "We bring maize, little things, beans, peanuts. We eat and live in Congo thanks to the train," said Elise Kayembe, a shopkeeper in Kananga. DRC is still recovering from decades of mismanagement and a 1998-2003 war that killed an estimated four million people and left infrastructure in ruins.

ITN Source | August 6, 2007

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