Two people died in a horrific collision between a train and a van on a railway crossing in Senen, Central Jakarta, on Tuesday afternoon.
According to the police, the van was attempting to pass through the railway crossing just before its gate closed. The van failed to clear the railway due to traffic up ahead, just as an inter-city train was incoming. The train then collided with the rear of the van, dragging it around 30m across the railway, before the collision sparked a huge fire that engulfed the van and one of the train’s carriages.
The train’s passengers were evacuated safely but the people inside the van weren’t so lucky.
“The known casualties so far are two people, the van’s driver and passenger,” wrote National Police head of Public Relations Martinus Sitompul in a release, as picked up by Tribun Tuesday evening.
According to Martinus, the two deceased victims were crushed inside the van during the crash and then engulfed in the fire. It took firefighters around 45 minutes to put out the fire on the van and the train.
The two victims were identified as Central Jakarta residents.
Trains crashing into vehicles on railway crossings is sadly quite common in Indonesia, with the latest major incident occurring in West Jakarta in 2015, during which 18 people were killed in a crash between a KRL Commuterline train and a minibus.
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