Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), Saturday 4 September 1954, page 1


82 Killed In Runaway

Mountain-train Crash

MANILA, Sept. 3 (A.A.P.). - Eighty-two people were killed yesterday when a heavily loaded timber train raced down a Philippines mountainside and crashed on a bridge.

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More than 100 passengers were travelling in unloaded flat waggons.

Most of the survivors were injured, many seriously.

Waggons, logs and bodies hurtled from the wrecked wooden bridge into a jungle gorge 100ft below.

The disaster occurred on Northern Negros Island, in the Southern Philippines.

The enginedrivcr, Pablo Villarete, 46, said that as the train crept down a steep grade near the town of Fabrica. 16 waggons loaded with logs broke loose.

In an attempt to save his train, Villarete raced his engine and seven coupled waggons down the mountain, but the runaway waggons caught up with the train on the bridge.

The crash derailed many trucks, wrecked the bridge and tossed five trucks into the gorge.

Chains holding the logs snapped and the huge logs hurtled off the trucks, crush-ing many passengers and sweeping others into the gorge.

Officials said passengers on the train were mostly em-ployees of the Insular Lumber Company, which owned the train, and their wives and children.