Cameroon train crash panic

YAOUNDE, Cameroon: Thousands of Cameroonians flocked to hospitals in the country’s two main cities yesterday to search for corpses and survivors after an overloaded train derailed on Friday. killing more than 70 people and injuring 600.

Many of the victims are receiving treatment in hospitals in the capital, Yaounde, and the port city of Douala after rail lines were cleared and the injured evacuated.

The accident happened in Eseka, about 125km west of Yaounde, which doesn’t have adequate facilities and is difficult to access by road because of landslides caused by heavy rains.

Mustapha Abbo, 45, searched in Yaounde for his younger sister, whose husband survived the accident.

“I have no information on the whereabouts of my sister’s corpse, so I decided to go from one mortuary to the other in search of her body,” he said.

Rigobert Nlend, 42, and his mother Prudence mourned his brother at the Yaounde Military Hospital mortuary after first looking in Douala.

Government spokesperson Issa Tchiroma said security services were immediately mobilised to help the victims. But officials had to wait until Saturday for railway workers to remove the wreckage, officials said.

Cameroon President Paul Biya extended condolences and declared today a national day of mourning.