The death toll from a train collision near the Indonesian capital Jakarta has risen to 14.
According to The Guardian, the train operator said on Tuesday, April 28, said that another 84 peope were injured in the collision that left 14 dead, as rescuers worked to extract survivors still trapped in the wreckage.
The collision between a commuter train and a long-distance train happened late on Monday in Bekasi, just outside Jakarta.
Bobby Rasyidi, chief executive of Indonesia’s state railway firm PT KAI, said the death toll had risen to 14 and that evacuation work was still ongoing.
Mohammad Syafii, the head of Indonesia’s search and rescue agency, told a press conference early on Tuesday that it was a delicate process to rescue survivors from the mangled carriages.
He said, “We needed to involve personnel with certain skills to perform a measured extrication. There are some victims who are alive to this minute and we’re hoping to extricate them, but they’re still pinned by the train material.”
One survivor told of the moments after a long-distance train slammed into the stationary commuter train she was in, trapping people inside mangled carriages.
Sausan Sarifah said, “I thought I was going to die,” the 29-year-old is admitted in RSUD Bekasi hospital with a broken arm and a deep cut to one thigh.
As rescuers worked to free many more trapped in the crushed train carriages, an Indonesian deputy house speaker, Sufmi Dasco Ahmad, said at the scene that the toll could continue to rise.
Franoto told Kompas TV the military, fire brigade, national search and rescue agency and Red Cross were aiding in the evacuation effort.
