Emergency personnel work to free passengers from the wreckage after a commuter train ran into the rear of a stationary train at Bekasi Timur train station on the Indonesian island of Java on Monday night killing at least 15 people. Photo by Mast Irham/EPA
At least 15 people were killed and 84 were injured when two trains collided on the same rail line just east of the Indonesian capital of Jakarta. Several passengers remain trapped in the wreckage with rescuers scrambling to free them.
The crash occurred Monday night when a long-distance commuter train ploughed into the back of a passenger train that was stationary at Bekasi Timur Station, 15 miles southeast of central Jakarta.
The train stopped at Bekasi Timur Station and was waiting for the line to be reopened following an earlier crash in which a third passenger train struck a taxi stalled on a grade crossing at around 8 p.m. local time.
All of those killed or injured were aboard the stopped train. Most of them were women riding in the rear-most car, which was designated as female-only.
National Search and Rescue Agency head Mohammad Syafii told journalists his team was working to try to reach survivors who he described as being “pinned by train material.”
“There are some victims who are alive to this minute and we’re hoping to extricate them. We need to involve personnel with certain skills to perform a measured extrication,” he said.
Six or seven people remained trapped, according to Jakarta Police Chief Insp. Gen. Asep Edi Suheri.
State-run KAI trains pledged to cover the medical expenses of the injured and the funeral costs of those killed in full.
Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto said he had ordered an immediate and thorough investigation into the cause of the accident.
Speaking on Tuesday as he visited the injured at Bekasi Regional Hospital, he vowed to elevate more rail lines to tackle safety issues presented by grade crossings, many of which he said were not properly manned, particularly in densely populated areas like Bekasi.
“I have ordered the immediate construction of flyovers with presidential assistance,” said Prabowo, adding that about 1,800 similar grade crossings across Java required urgent action, either eliminating them through constructing train flyovers or making them permanently manned.
He acknowledged that inadequate maintenance was a problem across large parts of Indonesia’s 4,500-mile rail network.
The government plans to triple that to 13,500 miles over the next 20 years as part of a major $70 billion public-private expansion initiative unveiled Friday by Coordinating Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono.
Public transit in Indonesia has a poor safety record overall, much of it the knock-on effects of not maintaining equipment properly and under-investment in upgrading old infrastructure.
Rail accidents in which people are killed or injured are common, many of them on grade crossings.
A collision between two trains in January 2024 near the city of Bandung in West Java killed four people and injured 42.
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Wreathes are seen amongst the statues at the Korean War Veterans Memorial during Memorial Day weekend in Washington on May 27, 2023. Memorial Day, which honors U.S. military personnel who died while in service, is held on the last Monday of May. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
