Nearly 140 hurt in Thai capital subway crash

BANGKOK - Nearly 140 people were injured on Monday in a rush-hour crash on Bangkok's new, $2.8 ($4.05) billion underground train system, which has been fully open for less than six months.

The crash, the first on the single-route, Bangkok Metro Co. subway that opened in August, occurred when an empty train collided with a crowded train stopped at the Thai Cultural Centre station in the heart of the capital.

About 700 passengers were on board, officials said.

"The service is suspended indefinitely until we can pinpoint the cause. We don't know how an empty train could have entered a track in service," transport minister Suriya Jungrungreangkit told reporters.

"We extremely regret this accident. Our priority is to move out the injured. The Bangkok Metro Co will be responsible for all expenses," he said.

Witnesses spoke of a heavy impact, and then darkness as they struggled to clamber out of the stricken carriages. Bangkok governor Apirak Kosayodhin said 139 people had been taken to hospital, of who about 60 had been kept in for further treatment.

"From what I can see, there was no death. But many of the injured were carried out on stretchers, some with dislocated shoulders," said Police Lieutenant Colonel Somnuk Pothanapan.

"The impact of the crash sent people sprawling on the floor," an office worker on the train told a TV station.

"The power went off and we groped around in the dark for five to 10 minutes. Finally we helped ourselves pry open the automated door to get out."

Prapat Chongsanguan, governor of the Mass Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand, which oversees the Bangkok Metro Co, said officials were trying to trace the cause of the accident by checking equipment at a maintenance centre near the station.

"Public confidence in the subway safety system may be hard to restore if the cause was proved to be due to equipment. But if it was caused by human errors, then it can be rectified," he told reporters.

The $2.8 billion subway, run by the Bangkok Metro Co, a consortium led by property developer Ch Karnchang, runs for 20 km beneath the traffic-laden streets of the sprawling capital.

The 18-station system, which is designed to carry more than 250,000 passengers a day, is part of a $7.5 billion, 110-km city-wide transport network aimed at resolving Bangkok's traffic woes by 2011.

Bangkok Metro Co has declined to comment.

A subway official said the empty train appeared to have come out of a service tunnel at the station.

"It happened because a train accidentally slid out of a maintenance section of the station and ran into another train that was waiting for passengers to board," the official told Reuters.

Thanyachan Srithongkam, a lawyer who witnessed the accident, said he was lucky to miss the damaged train.

"I missed the crowded train that was hit because the doors closed before I could get on it. Then this other train with only the driver on it came in from the opposite direction," Thanyachan told reporters.

"I was shocked to see this other train come this way. It took about 10 minutes for the passengers to get out. They could not get the emergency exits open," he said.

- REUTERS