By DPA,
Johannesburg : Dozens of passengers travelling on a luxury train in South Africa were injured after the Rovos Rail train, which was arriving from Cape Town, derailed in the capital Pretoria, emergency services said Wednesday.
The train, which had 55 passengers on board, derailed in a railway station in Pretoria, its destination.
The emergency services said 32 people were injured, three critically.
“Some of the coaches are lying on top of each other. They had to cut holes in the roofs to get the passengers out,” a spokesman for private emergency services company Netcare 911 said.
Emergency workers were still working to free passengers from the wreckage Wednesday afternoon. The injured had been taken to a local hospital.
The cause of the accident was unknown.
David Patrick, Rovos’s marketing manager, said the company would be carrying out an investigation into the accident, which he said took place between 11:30 and noon local time.
He also said he was not aware of any fatalities. Some South African news outlets were reporting a passenger had died.
The train had reportedly dropped off passengers in Johannesburg before it ran into problems on the final leg of its 1,600-km journey to Pretoria, the report said.
Rovos Rail, which describes itself as the world’s most luxurious rail company, has two classic trains that run between Cape Town, Pretoria and Victoria Falls on the Zimbabwe-Zambia border.
The cheapest ticket for the three-day journey from Cape Town to Victoria Falls costs 23,500 rand (3219 dollars), according to Rovos’s website.
The refurbished trains, which are richly furnished with wood panels, period furniture and large private suites, have a maximum capacity of 72 passengers.
South Africa’s other luxury train service is the Blue Train.