Brebes train crash kills 54

The Jakarta Post, Brebes

The live of dozens of holiday travelers well shattered by tragedy as apparent negligence spilt blood on the tracks in a head-on train collision near Brebes, Central Java, causing the death of up to 54 people.

Two overloaded economy-class trains - one heading east from Jakarta towards Yogyakarta and the other traveling west to the capital from Surabaya - collided at about 4:30 a.m. on Tuesday in the small Ketanggungan railway station, some 20 kilometers south of Brebes.

PT Kereta Api Indonesia (KAI) immediately blamed the 13th deadly train accident this year on "human error".

It was another agonizing testament to the poor management of one of the nation's primary modes of transportation. Particularly, because it occurred during the annual peak for railway travel.

Apart from some 54 dead, at least three dozen were injured, many of whom remain in critical condition.

Like previous accidents, this one apparently could have been prevented.

The paramount mystery will be why the engineer of the Empu Jaya train traveling from Jakarta ignored signals and veered at high speed into the track occupied by the Gaya Baru Malam train which was still parked at the station.

Was the engineer dozing and ignored the signals prohibiting him from using the track, which officials on Tuesday said were clearly marked?

Head of PT KAI in Cirebon, Abdul Majid, said the Empu Jaya train should not have sped into the fateful track, claiming that a red signal located some 300 meters west of the crash scene was already switched on.

Remarkably the engineer in question, 54-year-old Muhammad To'at, survived, albeit still under intensive care, and police guard, at Tanjung general hospital in Brebes.

But his colleague in the Gaya Baru Malam train, Sutrisno, was killed instantly.

Minister of Transportation Agum Gumelar, at the crash site, also seemed to suspect that To'at had fallen asleep at the controls.

Other than that there was little else that Agum could say other than to apologize and extend the government's condolences to the bereaved families.

Police are now left to question surviving passengers and railway officials, including Ketanggungan railway station chief Puji Effendi.

The tag of "death carriage" may not be an exaggeration to describe the Empu Jaya train as this was its third deadly accident in four months. The first two claimed 44 lives.

All were a result of human error.

The scene at Ketanggungan station on Tuesday was one of mangled devastation and carnage as at least four carriages and both locomotives from the trains were derailed in the impact, some careening into a nearby rice field.

The fact that the official death toll at this point has reached 54 may be somewhat of a miracle since as many as 1,200 people were squeezed into each of the trains.

For several hours after the accident rescue workers were still hard at work using steel cutting equipment to free those still trapped inside what must have seemed an iron coffin.

Many of those who survived were thrown out on impact while others smashed windows in a panic to escape.

The dead and injured were taken to at least five hospitals in Brebes and neighboring towns of Tegal and Cirebon.

Though rescue work was completed by late afternoon, there was still no definitive figure on the number of dead.

Data from the scene recorded some 54 dead with 28 seriously injured and eight others with light wounds.

Gatot Hamka a PT KAI spokesman in Brebes said the information had been gathered from hospitals treating the victims.

Ominously he conceded that "the number may continue to rise...Many victims are in critical condition."

But another official, Suhartono a spokesman of the railway company in Cirebon, put the death toll at 30.

He said 24 of the dead had been identified, while the remaining six were still unknown.

A check of four hospitals in the area -- the Tanjung general hospital in Brebes, the Harapan Anda and Kardinah hospitals in Tegal and Gunung Jati hospital in Cirebon -- found that they had a total of 32 dead from the accident.

To make matters worse, two other train accidents occurred on Tuesday in two East Java towns, killing three people.

The Matarmaja train, serving the Jakarta-Malang route hit a minivan in the Talun subdistrict of Blitar regency killing three passengers in the minivan.

The other accident occurred in Jember when the Rengganis train serving the Malang-Banyuwangi route derailed. At least 45 passengers were injured.