Tourist train derails on Taiwan mountain, killing 17

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- A train filled with tourists ran off a bridge near one of Taiwan's most popular mountain resorts Saturday, killing 17 people and seriously injuring 102, officials said.

As crews raced to airlift the injured from the island's central Ali Mountain, a rescue helicopter crash-landed near the scene. There were no serious injuries aboard the aircraft.

The locomotive engineer, Su In-fu, said faulty brakes may have caused the four-car train to derail as it descended the mountain, said Luo Jian-hsun, chief prosecutor for Chiayi county.

Most of the dead were in the last car, which tumbled off the bridge and into a ravine. Two cars lay perpendicular to the tracks, one end in the ravine and the other pointed toward the sky. The last car tilted at a 45-degree angle alongside the track.

Some of the 150 passengers said the train raced down the mountain like a roller coaster.

"The cars suddenly left the rails and fell over," one female passenger, her face and hands streaked with blood, told FTV cable news from a hospital bed.

"The car was filled with people. Some were standing," the woman said. "I looked at my daughter and saw her internal organs. I don't know where my daughter is now."

Officials with the Agricultural Council, which manages the railway, told reporters that the train, which can carry 200 passengers, wasn't overloaded. They also said the train passed its daily safety inspection before going up the mountain Saturday morning.

Interior Ministry officials said at a news conference that the accident killed 17 people and seriously injured 102.

Rescue workers struggled to carry stretchers up steep slopes and through thickets at the crash scene, about 140 miles south of Taipei. Crews loaded bodies covered with bloody blankets into helicopters and taken to hospitals, where families screamed and wept in grief.

Ali Mountain is one of Taiwan's most popular tourist spots. The Japanese built the narrow-gauge railway when they ruled Taiwan from 1895 to 1945. The rail line, which opened in 1912, was designed to haul lumber from the mountains, but now it is mostly used by tourists.

The 44-mile scenic line climbs from the subtropics to pine forests, crossing about 80 bridges and passing through about 50 tunnels. Its route includes a series of dangerous switchbacks.