In Vienna more than 41 people were injured, five of them seriously, when two commuter trains crashed in Monday Jan. 21. MSN reported that the driver of one of the trains and another person were in critical condition after the crash which occurred in a Vienna suburb called the Penzing District.
"Two of the seriously injured are in a life-threatening condition, one of whom is one of the train drivers," said emergency services spokesman Ronald Packert to Sky News "In total 41 people were hurt."
Rescue crews came to the scene shortly after and started to help passengers and crew evacuate the area. The Associated Press reported that a state railway employee forgot to activate a signal and a train left when it should not have.
"There was a technical problem," Austrian Railways spokeswoman Sarah Nettel said to Sky News. "One of the trains received a signal to proceed that it shouldn't have."
Australia's state railway OBB said in a statement that investigations showed that a supervisor forgot to trip a signal after activating a rail switch manually. The switch which is normally activated automatically was stuck because of snow and ice.
The statement added that the accident was because of "human error of the responsible supervisor."
The Associated Press also reported that "two helicopters from the Austrian motor club OAMTC joined ambulance crews in evacuating the wagons after the early morning accident."
Sky News reported that the crash happened next to an emergency services station which mean that rescue groups got there quickly after. Some individuals who were seriously injured had to be cut out of the wreckage.
Around 25 fire engines and air ambulances were on the scene and it took nearly two hours to evacuate both trains which were traveling on the same track.
"Many of the injured had to be removed from the wreckage with special cranes," reported Sky News.
Last September a train also derailed in the same area of Vienna but no injuries were reported.
Ice and snow are known to be dangerous situations for road travel. In Switzerland last week two passenger trains collided on Thursday morning injuring 17 people.
The Associated Press reported that the accident in Germany occurred near Neuhausen station in Northern Switzerland and that nine of the injured were taken to nearby hospitals. The cause of the collision was not immediately clear but a locomotive on one of the trains which was a double decker passenger train had derailed.
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