“Solavancos and stones to fly”. What is known about derailment in France

Uthe regional passenger transport train, with 180 people on board, derailed this Friday afternoon in the French department of Seine-Maritime, in the Normandy region, in northern France. Whoever was inside the train reports the moment of terror.

It was around 7:45 p.m. (less than 1 p.m. in mainland Portugal) when the train left the tracks, between Tourville and Elbeuf-Saint-Aubin, near the city of Cléon.

The train carried 186 people, 44 of whom were injured. An 18 - year - old girl was in serious condition and was transported by helicopter to the hospital.

“I thought I was going to die”

After the accident, it reveals the Gauls' press, the passengers were transferred to a room made available by the municipality of Cléon, where many witnessed the fright they experienced, reporting a terrible scene, with bumps, broken windows and stones flying inside the carriages.

“ I thought to myself: ‘My God, I’m going to die’,” Nils, one of the passengers trapped in the second carriage that derailed, told RTL. “The adrenaline was racing, we were being thrown around. We were going too fast, and with the derailment, we tried to hold onto everything we could [...] It was very scary”, reported.

Luís Branco, another of the passengers, says that “we heard a loud noise, followed by a tremor. Then we saw the first train car leaving the tracks and the windows shattering.”.

“It only lasted a few seconds. The first carriage fell and there was nothing left ahead of us,” he added in statements to TF1.

Driver tested negative for alcohol consumption

In the meantime it is known that this Saturday there will be a meeting to see what the next steps will be to remove the train from the site, with the circulation still having several conditionings in this area.

So far, it has not been possible to determine the causes of the accident, but it is known that the tests of alcohol and drugs performed by the driver have all been negative. To Le Parisien, police source indicated that the train was traveling at 140 km/h when it collided with a metal object that was on the tracks.

The prosecutor, through Assistant Prosecutor Marie-Valérie Albert, has already confirmed that it will be a “long investigation” and the railway company SNCF has ensured that it will cooperate fully with full transparency” in the investigation to ascertain all the circumstances.