At least 600 taken to hospital after 70 killed in Cameroon train derailment

Rescue workers are searching for more injured or dead after accident on line between capital Yaoundé and economic hub of Douala


Authorities in Cameroon rushed more than 600 injured people to hospitals in the country’s two main cities on Saturday a day after an overcrowded train derailed, killing more than 70 people.
Bodies remained strewn along the tracks at Eseka, which is about 75 miles west of Yaoundé, as rescue workers searched for more injured or dead. The injured were being taken to hospitals in the capital, Yaoundé, and the port city where the train was heading, Douala, officials said, as the president declared Monday to be a national day of mourning.
“My sincere condolences to the families of the victims of the derailment of the Camrail train,” President Paul Biya said on his official Facebook page. About 70 people died and 600 were wounded, he said, and the cause of the crash was being investigated.

The local hospital, with only about 60 beds, had been overwhelmed, said transport minister Edgard Alain Mebe Ngo’o. “I am calling on everyone to double efforts to save the lives of the injured,” he said.