A train locomotive rammed through a stalled passenger bus on a railroad crossing in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday, killing 43 people and injuring eight others as the bus was pushed 300 meters (yards) down the tracks.
According to the State Automobile Inspectorate of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, there were three children among those killed.
Three boys, aged seven, 13 and 15, were among those killed in the collision of a train and a bus in Dnipropetrovsk region, Interfax-Ukraine learned at the traffic police department of Ukraine’s Interior Ministry.
The 18-year old sister of the 15-year boy also died in the accident, the traffic police said.
Investigators said the bus driver ignored the siren of the oncoming train, and the bus stalled on the tracks as the driver tried to shift gears. Witnesses said the driver also ignored a red light.
The yellow bus was smashed into a pile of metal by the blue locomotive, which was not pulling any cars. Television footage showed emergency workers piling bodies alongside the tracks outside the town of Marhanets in the Dnipropetrovsk region.
"The driver violated traffic rules," said Lyudmila Bolshakova, spokeswoman for local police.
Ukraine’s Railways said the train driver saw the bus heading toward the tracks from 500 meters (yards) away and sounded the distress siren, which the driver ignored. The train driver applied the emergency brake system, but the locomotive was traveling at a speed of 75 kilometers (47 miles) per hour and was unable to stop in time.
Ukraine’s ombudsman Nina Karpachova cited crash survivor Dmytro Olyinik, 30, who was headed to work in a nearby mine, as saying that the passengers tried to stop the driver from crossing the tracks when they saw the red light and heard the siren. They started screaming "Where are you going?" Olyinik was reported as saying.
Local railway officials said the bus was packed with commuters traveling from Marhanets to the nearby city of Nikopol, most of them heading for work. Relatives of those killed raced to the accident site and embraced one another as they wept with grief.
Road and railway accidents are common in Ukraine, where the roads are in poor condition, vehicles are poorly maintained and drivers and passengers routinely disregard safety and traffic rules. But officials said this was the deadliest auto accident in the country’s history.
The Dnipropetrovsk branch of the Emergency Situations Ministry said 38 people died on the spot and five more in the hospital. The victims included a child and two teenagers.
Television footage showed the bodies of victims laid out under blankets alongside the track. President Viktor Yanukovich, who was in the region at the time, visited the disaster scene and later saw some of the survivors in a hospital.
In televised remarks, he said that Ukraine needed to strengthen its laws related to the responsibility of drivers of public transport. He declared Wednesday a day of mourning.
Traffic police said the accident was the worst on the roads in terms of victims since Ukraine became independent in 1991.
First Deputy Prime Minister Andriy Klyuev, who was appointed to head an investigation into the tragedy, issued an order for all railway crossings in the country to be upgraded.
"A tragic event occurred this morning … According to preliminary data, about 40 people have been killed," Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said at the start of a cabinet meeting. Azarov ordered his government to pay the family of each of the dead passengers 100,000 hryvna ($12,600).
He also instructed transport officials to install automated crossing gates at all railway crossings to prevent cars, buses and trucks from
ignoring signals.
Ukrainian police said in a statement that the bus was travelling from a hospital in Marhanets to a nearby town, Gorodishche. Thirty-eight people were killed immediately. The others died in hospital or on the way there.
