Brussels, 04/04/2007 (Agence Europe) - According to a report published by Eurostat in March, there was a total of 7023 serious train accidents in the EU25 in 2005, a fall of 14% compared to the previous year. This study on accidents on EU railways in 2004-05 also revealed that most of the 1464 people killed in 2005 were not passengers: the main cause of death was due to accidents involving materials being transported or accidents at level crossings.
Out of the 3112 people seriously injured or killed in the EU25 in 2005, only 28% were passengers or personnel. Three quarters of the victims were victims of accidents involving materials being transported (collisions with a train or detached train object) or had been involved in level crossing accidents. In 2005, Poland had the highest number of accident victims (694 out of a total number of 961), followed by Hungary (413 victims out of 1863 accidents), Germany (366 out of 1111 accidents) and the Czech Republic (349 out of 688 accidents). These four countries account for a little over 60% of all rail accident victims in the EU25.
These two kinds of accident have also proved to be the most fatal. Among those killed in train accidents (1464 people in the EU25), 411 (28%) were victims of level crossing accidents and 985 (67%) were killed in accidents involving materials being transported. Ireland and Luxembourg were the only countries to announce no deaths on the railways in 2005; Slovakia and Estonia calculated only one kind of accident, namely accidents that involved the transportation of materials in Estonia and level crossing accidents in Slovakia. The number of deaths in these two accident categories was over 200 in the Czech Republic and Poland. 226 people were killed in collisions in Poland (196 in the Czech Republic, including suicides). Figures are much lower for deaths at level crossings and account for 52 deaths in Poland and 64 in the Czech Republic. In total, 291 people were killed in Poland, and 294 in the Czech Republic lost their lives in rail accidents. (aby)