WARSAW: Eight people were killed and two injured when a train hit a minibus on a level crossing in central Poland on Monday, emergency services said, in the second major rail accident this year.
Most of the casualties were probably citizens of neighboring Ukraine but their identities were still being checked, said the governor of the Lodz region, where the crash took place.
“I have already alerted the Ukrainian embassy, its consul or a deputy consul will probably come to the accident location,” governor Joanna Chelminska told broadcaster TVN 24.
The minibus carrying 10 people, eight women and two men, drove onto an unguarded crossing near the city of Lodz. The force of the collision with the train pushed the bus 30 meters down the track, a local policeman told the broadcaster.
“The impact was so strong that we cannot even recognize the make of the vehicle,” the police officer, Krzysztof Zielinski, said. “None of the train passengers was hurt.”
Two women from the minibus were taken to local hospitals with serious injuries.
In March, 16 people died and 60 were injured in a head-on collision between two trains.