A train derailed near The Hague in the early hours of Tuesday, sending two carriages into a field next to the tracks, Dutch emergency services said. One person died and some 30 passengers were injured, many of them seriously.
Television images showed people using makeshift bridges and ladders to cross a narrow drainage canal running alongside the rails to reach the stricken train in the darkness. Many windows in the train carriages were broken. It was not clear if that happened during the accident or as passengers attempted to escape.
Two of the bright yellow and blue train carriages came to rest perpendicular to the tracks across the small canal and partially in a field. What appeared to be the front of the train was badly damaged. Other parts of the train were partially derailed.
The four-carriage passenger train was carrying about 50 passengers at the time of the crash.
A freight train also was stopped on rails close to the wreckage of the passenger train near the rails between the cities of Leiden and The Hague.
The exact cause of the accident that happened around 3:25 a.m. (0125 GMT) in the town of Voorschoten, near The Hague, was not immediately clear.
( Source AP)
