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[Article] Three arrested after Turkish train crash

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  • 26-07-2004 1:22am
    #1
    Victor
    Registered Users Posts: 78,251 ✭✭✭✭


    Hmmm, people were lauding Turking rail projects for their cheapness recently.

    http://home.eircom.net/content/irelandcom/breaking/3659515?view=Eircomnet
    Three arrested after Turkish train crash
    From:ireland.com
    Sunday, 25th July, 2004

    The crew chief and two others were arrested by a Turkish court after a high-speed train crash that killed 36 people and injured 81, CNN Turk television reported last night.

    Crew chief Koksal Coskun and two engineers, Fikret Karabulut and Recep Sonmez, were accused of "causing the death of more than one person through negligence and carelessness."

    The express train derailed Thursday near the northwestern town of Pamukkale while on its way from Turkey's commercial hub Istanbul to capital Ankara.

    The lawyer for the three, Ismail Gurses, said his clients should not be made scapegoats for the accident, adding responsibility for the accident belonged to the state railway company TCDD.

    Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan angrily rejected calls Friday to sack his transport minister and other senior officials despite mounting pressure on the government, and said he would await a report from an investigation.

    The crash, in a mountainous area of northwest Turkey near the town of Pamukova, has deeply embarrassed the government, which inaugurated the new rail link recently in a blaze of publicity.

    The new train was part of an extensive modernization of Turkey's ramshackle rail network.

    Officials say a mechanical fault was probably to blame, but the arrested train chief and engineers said improper infrastructure was the cause of the accident.

    Transport Minister Binali Yildirim told reporters Friday the train had exceeded the speed limit of about 50 miles per hour at the time of the crash and was traveling at 73 mph.

    But Ismail Gurses told CNN Turk that his clients were told by railway authorities that it was safe for the train to travel at 81 miles an hour through the area where the accident happened.


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