Some 200 passengers in Austria were evacuated Wednesday after the train they were riding caught fire in a tunnel, authorities said.
Around 45 passengers suffered minor injuries in the incident, likely from smoke inhalation, local police told AFP.
The train headed to Hamburg and Amsterdam was passing through a tunnel close to the city of Innsbruck in the Austrian Alps on Wednesday evening, when its overhead wire snapped, a spokesman for the Austrian rail operator OeBB told AFP.
The train carrying passengers was also transporting automobiles and one or several of them caught fire from the damaged cable, the spokesman said. "The fire was extinguished at 22:19, and the evacuation was complete by 23:40 local time," the official added. The OeBB train left Vienna on Wednesday evening and was scheduled to arrive in Amsterdam on Thursday morning.
Agencies add: Some 200 passengers in Austria were evacuated on Wednesday (June 7) after the train they were travelling in caught fire in a tunnel in Tyrol. Speaking to the news agency AFP, local police said that around 45 passengers suffered minor injuries, likely from smoke inhalation. According to a spokesperson for the Austrian rail operator OeBB, the train headed to Hamburg and Amsterdam was passing through a tunnel close to Innsbruck in the Austrian Alps when its overhead wire snapped.
The cause of the fire appeared to be a faulty overhead electric wire that fell on a trailer attached to the train that was transporting passengers’ cars and set two vehicles ablaze.
"The fire was extinguished at 22:19, and the evacuation was complete by 23:40 local time," the official added.
On Thursday, authorities started recovering the train from the tunnel where it got stuck. Following the removal, the train was set to be hauled back to the central station in Innsbruck, a report by the news agency Associated Press said.
Initially, officials had said that around 370 passengers might be onboard but later said this was an estimate based on total ticket reservation numbers that turned out to be inaccurate on closer inspection at the scene.
"According to our current information, there is a total of 33 people with light injuries, who were taken to nearby hospitals for further evaluation," a statement said, adding 700 emergency services were at the incident site.
Passengers who did not need any medical attention were taken by bus to Innsbruck, where they were offered accommodation.
