At least eleven people were killed and twenty two others injured when a passenger train collided with a truck on a level crossing on way to Melbourne.
MELBOURNE: At least eleven people were killed and twenty two others injured when a passenger train collided with a truck on a level crossing on way to Melbourne on Tuesday.
The death toll could rise further with five people sustaining serious injuries and 13 others still missing, authorities said.
The absence of boom gates on the crossing near Kerang in Victoria where train disaster, one of Australia's worst in recent years, occurred was one of the major reasons for the mishap.
Emergency operations were still on to find survivors in the wreckage of the train. The injured have been rushed to hospitals in Melbourne, Kerang and Mildura, police said.
The train, consisting of a locomotive and three carriages, had left the station at 1 pm (0830 IST) and was 40 minutes into its journey when tragedy struck on a crossing.
Witnesses said the truck slammed into the second carriage, peeling it open and exposing the passengers inside, before separating the third carriage from the rest of the train and forcing it off the track.
"You just wonder how anybody got out," crash survivor Sue Fyffe told Sky News.
"People were sitting in seats with glass all over them. All we could hear was people screaming and crying and moaning - it was just awful, devastating." he said.
Rescue workers also said many of the victims were in a bad shape.
"There were a lot of people who lost legs and arms, it was just horrible," a German tourist, Helena, said.
The driver of the truck was taken to the Mildura hospital in a critical condition, police said.
Police said 39 people were listed on the train's manifest, which included three train staff who were uninjured and had been accounted for.
Of the 36 passengers, 22 suffered varying degrees of injuries.
Six were airlifted to hospitals in Melbourne in a critical condition, including a 15-year-old girl and an elderly man feared to have spinal injuries.
At least one of those is believed to have died early this evening, as the death toll climbed to 11.
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