JAKARTA, April 28 (Reuters) – The death toll from a train collision in Indonesia has risen to seven with another 81 injured, a railway official said on Tuesday, as rescuers worked to extract survivors trapped in the wreckage.
The collision between a commuter train and a long-distance train happened late on Monday in Bekasi, just outside Jakarta. 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 get survivors out of the mangled carriages.
“We needed to involve personnel with certain skills to perform a measured extrication,” he said. “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.”
Rescuers were seen using angle grinders to cut through the metal of the train compartments to reach survivors.
Bobby Rasyidin, the chief executive of state-owned railway firm PT KAI, said the death toll had risen to seven. He told the press conference that a taxi on the train tracks was hit by the commuter train, and the long-distance train hit a women-only carriage on the commuter train.
Taxi operator Green SM Indonesia, the Indonesian branch of Vietnamese electric-vehicle taxi operator Green and Smart Mobility JSC which is an affiliate of Vingroup, said on Instagram that the taxi was one of theirs and they had sent information to authorities to assist in the investigation.
Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT) is investigating the crash.
Land transport accidents are reasonably common in Indonesia. A train collision in West Java province in 2024 killed four people and injured dozens.
(Reporting by Stanley Widianto; Editing by John Mair)
