3 dead, dozens injured after passenger train hits freight train in Belgium

The scene of the train crash Sunday night in Belgium.
(Image credit: Twitter.com/STForeignDesk)

Three people were killed and dozens injured when a passenger train hit a freight train late Sunday night in Belgium.

The train was carrying "around 40 passengers" when it "crashed into the back of a freight train on the same track," the Belgian national railway company SNCB said in a statement. "The collision derailed two of the six carriages." A spokesman for Infrabel, the Belgian railroad infrastructure manager, said the passenger train was traveling at a high speed when it crashed.

The incident took place on the line between Namur and Liege in the eastern municipality of Saint-Georges-Sur-Meuse. The district's mayor told the Belga news agency the impact was "very violent," and the death toll was a preliminary estimate.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.