Precede CAIRO
(APW_ENG_19950415.0272)
1) An express train plowed into a crowded bus Saturday in the Nile Delta north of Cairo, killing 42 people and wounding 45 others.
2) The bus carried about 90 workers heading to a textile factory when it was struck about 7 a.m. at a rural rail crossing near Quwesna, about 60 kilometers (36 miles) north of Cairo.
3) There were conflicting reports on whether the bus driver was mistakenly waved through the crossing by a guard or ignored alarm bells. Wreckage from the bus was strewn for 200 meters (yards) along the path next to the tracks.
4) Most of the victims were believed to have been bus passengers, but witnesses said some people riding atop the train -- a common but illegal practice -- were thrown off and hurt.
5) Six of the injured were treated and released, while 39 others were taken to nearby hospitals. The bus was traveling from the town of Arab el-Ram to the factory in Quwesna.
6) Witnesses said the bus driver stopped at the crossing, waited for a northbound train to pass and was waved across by a guard. When he drove onto the tracks, the bus was struck by the southbound Alexandria-Cairo express, they said.
7) But an Interior Ministry statement blamed the bus driver, saying he ignored the alarm and warnings from railway guards. There was no barrier at the crossing, only warning signals.
Five Killed, 35 Injured As Train Hits A Bus
(APW_ENG_19960411.0674)
1) A railroad train smashed an inter-city bus Thursday at a crossing, killing five passengers and injuring 35 others, police said.
2) The bus driver didn't see the train coming at an unmanned railroad crossing in Faridpur district, 40 miles (65 kilometers) southwest of Dhaka, the Bangladesh capital.
3) Five bodies were recovered from the bus wreckage, police said.
4) At least 35 bus passengers were hospitalized. Three of them were in critical condition, police said. (fh/aks)
Train slams into bus killing 6 children, 3 adults
(APW_ENG_19970121.0551)
1) A passenger train slammed into a school bus Tuesday, killing six children and three adults, the state-run news reported.
2) The bus was crossing an unmarked railway crossing in the eastern Punjab provincial capital of Lahore when it was hit by a passenger train, the Associated Press of Pakistan reported.
3) The nine people, including the bus driver, died instantly. Five other children and a teacher were rushed to hospital with serious wounds.
4) There were no reports of injuries to passengers aboard the train.
5) Railway officials blamed the bus driver for the accident, saying he didn't stop at the railway crossing.
13 people killed in bus-train collision
(APW_ENG_19970323.1000)
1) Thirteen people were killed and 20 others injured Monday when a passenger bus collided with a train at a rail crossing in southern South Korea, police said.
2) The accident occurred when the bus driver ignored a red light and tried to cross the rail crossing near Namwon, 200 kilometers (125 miles) south of Seoul shortly after 9 a.m. (0000 GMT), they said.
3) All of those killed and injured were passengers on the bus, police said.
Philippine train hits bus, injuring at least 12
(APW_ENG_19971008.0431)
1) A commuter train hit a bus at a crossing in metropolitan Manila Wednesday, injuring at least 12 passengers, officials said.
2) Police investigators said the bus driver apparently ignored the train's horn and a signal light and tried to make it to the other side of the crossing before the train arrived, but was unable to cross because of heavy traffic.
3) When he saw the train was going to hit the bus, he apparently turned on to the side of the tracks to avoid a direct impact, and the bus was sideswiped, police said. The driver fled after the accident, they said.
4) Mayor Jejomar Binay of Makati, Manila's business district, said 12 passengers on the bus were hospitalized. No one was injured on the train, he said.
5) It was the second train accident in metropolitan Manila in less than a month. On Sept. 22, two overloaded commuter trains bound for Manila collided after one separated from its engine and rolled backward more than two kilometers (one mile) into the path of the second train, killing at least eight people and injuring more than 200 others.
6) The Philippine train system is old and generally in poor condition, with many unguarded crossings.
17 killed, 26 injured as train rams into bus
(APW_ENG_19980813.0020)
1) A speeding train rammed a bus at a railway crossing in southern India Thursday, killing 17 people and injuring 26, domestic news agencies reported.
2) The bus apparently stalled after crashing though a closed gate at the crossing, and was unable to move when the train approached, the Press Trust of India reported. All the victims were passengers of the bus which was packed to capacity.
3) No one on the train was killed or injured. The train engine was slightly damaged, PTI said.
4) The accident occurred near the town of Karur, 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) south of the Indian capital New Delhi.
Speeding train kills 12 bus passengers
(APW_ENG_19981218.0570)
1) An express train plowed through a bus at a crossing Friday, killing at least 12 people and injuring 10, police said.
2) The accident occurred in Jhenidah district, 80 miles (130 kilometers) west of Dhaka, Bangladesh's capital.
3) Ten passengers from the bus died instantly and two others died on way to hospital, police said. All the victims were from the bus, which reportedly got stuck at the crossing.
Six people dead after bus collides with train
(APW_ENG_20020220.1240)
1) A bus collided with a passenger train in eastern Romania on Wednesday, killing six people and seriously injuring four others.
2) The train hit the bus carrying 20 passengers at a crossing near the town of Munteni, some 250 kilometers (155 miles) northeast of Bucharest, pushing it down the tracks for about 500 meters (yards).
3) The bus driver, who escaped with moderate injuries, told police the engine had stopped while he was crossing the tracks.
4) Police are investigating whether the driver ignored warnings that the train was approaching.
5) The passengers were rushed to local hospitals, and four were reported to be seriously injured.
Six killed, 24 injured when train crashes into bus in Brazil
(APW_ENG_20020316.0728)
1) Six people burned to death and 24 were seriously injured when a cargo train crashed into a passenger bus at a crossing in southeastern Brazil early Saturday, transport police said.
2) The bus driver, Lucivaldo Remigio Silva, did not see the train arriving at a railway crossing on a country road outside Espinosa in Minas Gerais state, about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) north of Rio de Janeiro, said a local police officer on condition of anonymity.
3) The train, traveling at about 50 kph (31 mph) dragged the bus for 150 meters (495 feet) before it could stop, leading to the explosion of the bus' fuel tank, he said.
4) The driver and 23 bus passengers were taken to nearby hospitals with heavy burns and bone fractures, police said.
URGENT At least 31 dead after train collides with bus carrying German tourists in Hungary
(APW_ENG_20030508.0126)
1) A passenger train struck a double-decker bus carrying German tourists near a Hungarian resort on Thursday, killing at least 31 people, a rescue official said.
2) The accident occurred at a railroad crossing near the town of Siofok, one of the most popular tourist resorts on Lake Balaton, about 100 kilometers (63 miles) southwest of Budapest.
3) Tibor Dobson, spokesman for the National Catastrophe Directorate, said 31 people on the bus were killed and at least 12 were injured. He said no one on the train suffered any serious injuries.
4) Pal Gyorfi, a spokesman for the National Rescue Service, would not confirm the casualty figures, saying that rescue efforts were still underway. He did, however, say that 11 people had been taken to hospitals.
5) Gyorfi said it was also too early to provide any further details.
6) ``The wreckage is too deformed,'' Gyorfi told Info Radio, a Budapest radio station.
7) Lake Balaton draws large numbers of visitors every year, and is especially popular with German tourists.
Train collides with bus carrying German tourists, killing dozens
(APW_ENG_20030508.0248)
1) A passenger train smashed into a double-decker tour bus near Central Europe's largest lake Thursday, killing at least 30 German tourists and injuring eight others in one of Hungary's worst such disasters.
2) The accident occurred before 9 a.m. (0700 GMT) at a railroad crossing near the town of Siofok, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) southwest of Budapest. The town is a popular tourist resort on Lake Balaton.
3) Thirty people died in the crash, Lt. Col. Laszlo Gelencser of the Somogy County Police told The Associated Press.
4) Gelencser said 27 people had died at the scene, while three more died after being taken to hospitals. Eight were injured, he said.
5) Gelencser said all the passengers on the bus were German.
6) Prime Minister Peter Medgyessy called the crash ``one of the all-time worst traffic accidents'' in Hungary. He said he had expressed his condolences by telephone to German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
7) The train severed the bus in two, dragging one of the sections about 150 meters (160 yards) along the tracks, said Tibor Dobson, spokesman for the National Catastrophe Directorate.
8) No one aboard the train suffered any serious injuries, Dobson said.
9) Mounds of twisted steel barely recognizable as a vehicle, including bus metal wrapped around the front of the locomotive, were visible at the scene. Several bodies were still lying at the side of the tracks, covered with blankets, in the early afternoon.
10) The front end of the bus appeared to be charred.
11) Police were working on trying to identify the victims before taking the bodies to a morgue.
12) Gelencser said the impact with the train propelled the front part of the bus about 50 meters (yards) away from the crossing by the train, while the other half had been dragged along the tracks.
13) Though the exact cause of the accident was not immediately clear, state railway officials claimed that the crossing signal was on red when the bus started moving across the tracks.
14) The bus driver and tour guide, both Hungarians, had only suffered minor injuries and had already been released from the hospital, the German ambassador to Hungary, Wilfried Gruber, told AP. He said he had just visited two seriously injured German tourists in a hospital.
15) The German Embassy said it had set up a crisis center near the scene of the accident.
16) An official for Ursel-Reisen, the owner of the bus, said the passengers came mainly from two German states, Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein.
17) From spring to fall, thousands of tourists visit the 369-square-mile (595-square-kilometer) lake _ central Europe's biggest. Hordes of holiday makers swarm to Balaton's shallow southern shores, northern hills and vineyards.
18) The water of Lake Balaton is rich in minerals _ especially calcium and magnesium _ reputed to have a therapeutic effect on bathers' blood circulation.
19) The area is especially popular with German tourists.
20) (pg/vg/bk)
Force of crash shears bus into two, scattering bodies and crushed metal
(APW_ENG_20030508.0379)
1) Cleaning up the carnage left by a train-bus crash, emergency crews pulled plastic sheeting and blankets Thursday over dozens of bodies, some of them mutilated beyond recognition.
2) The bodies were pulled from the twisted wreckage of a double-decker tour bus cut into two by a passenger train near Lake Balaton. The crash left more than 30 German tourists killed and eight others injured.
3) Witnesses spoke of a horrific crash as the train plunged into the bus near the tourist resort of Siofok on the southern shores of Balaton.
4) Engineer Istvan Galos, 39, said two tour buses with German license plates were traveling together. Galos said he saw the first bus cross the tracks while the warning lights were flashing white, but the second crossed as the lights were already flashing red.
5) ``There was an enormous crashing sound when the train hit the bus and I saw parts of the bus flying out in the air,'' Galos said. ``The train blew its whistle twice to warn the bus, but the train was not able to stop in time.
6) ``I've never seen anything like it in my life,'' Galos said. ``There were limbs hanging out of the smashed windows of the bus.''
7) Galos said he called the police from a shop near the crossing but was too horrified to go to the wreckage to help, because, ``the sight was just too much for me.''
8) The crash left mounds of twisted steel barely recognizable as a vehicle, including bus metal wrapped around the front of the locomotive. The front end of the bus appeared to be charred.
9) The nose of the bus landed some 50 meters (yards) from the crossing, while the back part burst into flames after being dragged along the tracks for some 150 meters (160 yards) by the express train on its way from Budapest to Nagykanizsa in southern Hungary, near the border with Croatia. The shattered windshield lay on the tracks, and a sign advertising a hotel lay nearby, swept away by the force of the crash.
10) Ambulances took most of the bodies to morgues by early afternoon, but several were still lying at the side of the tracks, covered with blankets. Bottles of mineral water, women's bathing suits and pages of German newspapers were scattered around the wreckage.
11) (kpk/pg/gj)
Bus driver in deadly bus-train crash passed vehicle that had stopped to wait for train to go by, authorities say
(APW_ENG_20030509.0073)
1) The driver of a double-decker bus cut in two by a passenger train in a crash that killed 33 not only ignored warning lights but also passed a vehicle that had stopped at the rail crossing to wait for the train to go by, authorities said Friday after a reenactment of the crash.
2) The German bus driver and 32 mostly elderly German tourists died in the accident Thursday, while five survivors _ four tourists and a Hungarian tour guide _ were being treated at area hospitals.
3) According to a reenactment put on by Hungarian authorities, the bus involved in the accident passed a minibus that had stopped at the crossing to wait for the train to go by, said Economics Minister Istvan Csillag, who attended the reenactment.
4) The bus driver should have seen the train coming because it was visible for several hundred meters (yards) along the tracks as it approached the crossing, Csillag added. The bus crossed the tracks very slowly and at an angle because of the maneuver needed to pass the minibus waiting at the flashing red warning light, he added.
5) The accident bus was the last of three traveling in a convoy, and the driver ignored flashing red lights ''and tried to catch up with the other buses,'' Csillag said.
6) The collision happened around 9 a.m. on Thursday at a railroad crossing near the town of Siofok, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) southwest of Budapest. The town is a popular tourist resort on Lake Balaton.
7) Train traffic on the route affected by the crash was restarted Friday morning, after about 300 meters (yards) of rails had been replaced near the accident site.
8) The tracks were damaged when the train dragged the back section of the bus more than 150 meters (yards) along the tracks. The locomotive and the coach car immediately behind it were both partially derailed in the crash.
9) State railway officials said the crossing signal was in working order and flashing red when the bus started moving across the tracks as the express train approached on its way from Budapest to Nagykanizsa in southern Hungary, near the Croatian border.
10) The crossing has no barriers, its flashing lights serving as the only warning of incoming trains. Gates are rare at Hungarian railway crossings.
11) From spring to fall, thousands of tourists visit the shores, hills and vineyards of Lake Balaton _ central Europe's biggest lake. The water is rich in minerals and is reputed to have a therapeutic effects for bathers.
12) (pg/sl)
Memorial service held for victims of Hungarian bus crash
(APW_ENG_20030511.0128)
1) Relatives of the victims and government officials on Sunday attended a religious service in memory of 33 people who died in a collision between a bus and a train.
2) The accident Thursday killed a German bus driver and 32 mostly elderly German tourists in the bus. It occurred at a railway crossing near this town on Lake Balaton, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) southwest of the capital, Budapest.
3) The bus was cut in two by the train, which was traveling at 100 kilometers an hour (60 mph).
4) Five people on the bus _ four tourists and a Hungarian tour guide _ were injured, some seriously. Two of the injured tourists were flown back to Germany on Friday. Two people on the train were slightly hurt.
5) Attendance at the ecumenical service _ held in a Catholic church just 50 meters (yards) from the scene of the accident _ was by invitation only, but dozens of Siofok residents and reporters followed the service on a projection screen set up outside the church.
6) Among the government officials attending the service were German Transport Minister Manfred Stolpe and Katalin Szili, speaker of the Hungarian parliament.
7) Representing the two German states where many of the victims lived were Uwe Schuenemann, Interior Minister of Lower Saxony, and Klaus Buss, Interior Minister of Schleswig-Holstein.
8) The service was conducted by the Rev. Janos Wirth, a local Catholic priest; the Rev. Willi Klinkhammer, head of the German speaking Catholic community in Hungary; and the Rev. Andreas Welmer, head of Hungary's German speaking Evangelical community.
9) ``We have held each other tight, in each other's arms, over the past few days,'' Klinkhammer said. ``This (memorial service) ... is to help us understand something which we cannot comprehend.''
10) Wellmer reminded the mourners about the difficulties faced by those who lose loved ones.
11) ``It is God's will that you live, despite the mourning and the pain,'' Wellmer said.
12) Officials said a number of the victims had yet to be identified, a task expected to be finished later Sunday.
13) ``The identification process has not yet been completed,'' Christian Resing, first secretary of the German embassy, told The Associated Press. ``Some of the relatives visited the morgue this morning to identify their loved ones before coming to the service.''
14) After the service, the relatives laid flowers at a makeshift shrine created by local residents and tourists at the deadly railroad crossing.
15) Authorities said the bus driver ignored warning lights and began to cross the tracks despite an approaching train in an attempt to catch up with another bus it was traveling with in a convoy.
16) The crossing has no barriers, its flashing lights serving as the only warning of approaching trains. Gates or bars are rare at Hungarian railway crossings.
17) Stolpe, the transport minister, said that Germany and Hungary had to work together to ``make transportation safer within the framework of European cooperation.''
18) He warned against blaming the driver before the investigation is completed.
19) (pg/rp)
German bus accident kills 28 on French highway
(APW_ENG_20030517.0299)
1) A sleek, double-decker German tour bus crashed through a guardrail on a rain-swept French highway, plunged down an embankment and flipped onto its roof early Saturday, killing 28 of the 74 people on board.
2) Ambulances and helicopters rushed injured passengers to hospitals. Some were in serious condition. A witness and a police officer said excess speed may have played a role in the crash.
3) French President Jacques Chirac immediately offered his ``sincere condolences'' to German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
4) It was the second major deadly crash this month involving a bus loaded with German tourists. On May 8, a bus collided with train in the town of Siofok, Hungary, killing the German bus driver and 32 German tourists.
5) At least six of the injured in Saturday's accident were in serious condition, said Col. Serge Delaigue, the regional director of fire rescue services. The bus carried 72 passengers and two drivers.
6) One of the drivers was confirmed dead. Nearly all of the people aboard were believed to be Germans from several cities. The bus had taken on passengers in Cologne and Hanover.
7) At least some of them had won the trip as a prize in a contest in Germany.
8) ``It was really a catastrophic scene,'' said police Lt. Antoine Bompart. ``There were people crying and screaming everywhere.'' He said some passengers had been trapped in the wreckage.
9) Bompart said some witnesses recalled the driver braked to avoid a vehicle in front of him, and then lost control of the double-decker. The police lieutenant added it appeared the bus was traveling about 110 kilometers (68 miles) an hour, while the speed limit for that sort of vehicle in the rain is 90 kilometers (56 miles) an hour.
10) The accident north of the city of Lyon in Dardilly, about 370 kilometers (230 miles) southeast of Paris, happened at 5 a.m. (0400 GMT).
11) Witnesses and officials said the bus hit a guardrail, barreled down a grassy embankment and hit an electrical pole before flipping onto its roof. One witness told RTL radio that he thought the bus had been going too fast.
12) Its huge undercarriage and axles were twisted and bent by the force of the impact, while the roof was crushed.
13) ``We had to cut through the bus to remove the victims,'' Delaigue said on the French LCI television station.
14) The bus had been traveling all night, and regulations require that two drivers take turns at the wheel. The bus had toured throughout Germany and was headed toward Spain.
15) The pre-dawn crash comes during the French government's latest campaign to improve safety on its oft-criticized highways.
16) It was bound to raise questions about the risks posed by the thousands of tour buses that crisscross France and other European countries every day, often on overnight trips.
17) Tiger-Reisen, the bus owner, is based in a single-family home in the quiet Hanover suburb of Wunstorf. All the windows were shuttered Saturday afternoon and no one was answering the doorbell or phone calls.
18) One witness, Patrick Sirolli, told LCI that the bus was speeding down the highway when it flew out of control.
19) ``The bus was going fast. I said to myself, that's how you have accidents,'' he said, adding that the next moment the bus had flown out of control.
20) Highway traffic was temporarily halted as ambulances, rescue workers and firefighters rushed to the scene.
21) (parf-jc-kc-eg-kh)
Police: 17 mostly young Danes injured in bus accident in northern Germany
(APW_ENG_20030519.0549)
1) Seventeen people were injured, one of them seriously, Monday when a double-decker bus carrying a group of Danish school kids slipped off a wet road and into a ditch in northern Germany, police said.
2) It was not immediately clear what caused the accident or whether the seriously injured person was an adult or a student, said Thomas Less, a spokesman for police in the town of Ploen, 530 kilometers (330 miles) northeast of Frankfurt, where the accident occurred.
3) The lightly injured were treated at the scene, Less said, while the seriously injured person was transported by helicopter to the nearest hospital.
4) A total of 70 people were on the bus, including the driver. The bus was returning to Denmark from a trip to an amusement park near the port city of Luebeck on Germany's Baltic Sea coast, according to state authorities in Schleswig-Holstein.
5) The accident comes on the heels of a deadly German tour bus crash in France that killed 28 people over the weekend. Earlier this month another bus collided with train in the resort town of Siofok, Hungary, killing the German driver and 32 German tourists.
6) (me)
Hungary to place barriers at dangerous railway crossings
(APW_ENG_20030602.0525)
1) More than 20 railway crossings in the Lake Balaton holiday resort area will be equipped with barriers to avoid a repeat of an accident last month that killed 33 Germans, a government minister said Monday.
2) The 20 barriers _ which include one at the crossing where a German tourist bus collided with a train last month _ are part of a program to equip 150 crossings with barriers over the next three years, said Istvan Csillag, the minister of industry.
3) ``The rate of accidents at railway crossings in Hungary is significantly higher than the average in the European Union,'' Csillag said, adding that 66 accidents involving vehicles and trains occurred at crossings last year alone.
4) Most accidents occurred despite flashing warning lights, he added.
5) In the May 8 accident near the resort town of Siofok, 32 German tourists and their bus driver died when their bus was sliced in half by a train. The crossing had no barrier.
6) An investigation into the accident is underway, but investigators believe the crossing's warning lights flashed red to warn of the approaching train.
7) Equipping the 150 crossings with barriers is estimated to cost 500 million forints (US$2.3 million) a year for three years.
8) (kpk/sl)
Train smashes into bus in Pakistan, killing at least 27, in one of worst accidents in years
(APW_ENG_20030920.0237)
1) A passenger train plowed into a packed bus driving over an unguarded railway crossing in central Pakistan on Saturday, killing at least 27 passengers and injuring six others, officials said.
2) The country's main emergency relief agency, the Edhi Foundation, said 35 people were killed in the crash. However, Pakistan Railways, police and doctors said 27 died.
3) The crash _ one of the worst in recent years involving Pakistan's antiquated railways _ outraged area residents, who accused the government of ignoring their pleas to improve safety at the crossing despite two earlier accidents at the site.
4) The bus was torn to pieces when the train hit it at Malikwal town in Punjab province, about 150 kilometers (90 miles) south of Islamabad.
5) ``I saw blood and human parts scattered everywhere,'' local resident Javed Nawaz said. ``The bus looked like a skeleton.''
6) Dozens of residents tried to pull survivors from the wreckage, he said. Police came later and took away the dead and injured.
7) Pervez Ahmad, a doctor at Mandi Bhawaldin Hospital, said hundreds of people had gathered outside the hospital to identify bodies and pray for the injured.
8) The dead _ three children and 24 men _ and four of the injured were on the bus, he said. Two of those hurt were in critical condition. The two train engineers were both injured.
9) Malikwal police chief Waqar Haider said the railway crossing did not have a gate or lights to warn vehicles of oncoming trains.
10) Residents, and local police officer Mohammed Nadeem, said they had repeatedly urged Pakistan Railways to install a protective gate at the crossing _ but with no success.
11) Resident Mohammed Sabir said that a year ago a train smashed into a small truck at the crossing, killing two people.
12) ``Then we again contacted railway officials six months ago when another train hit a truck, wounding one person,'' he said. ``We wrote letters to the minister for railways about the danger we are facing but they took no notice.''
13) A spokesman for Pakistan Railways, Nasrullah Ghalzai, said he had no knowledge of earlier crashes at the site and insisted the department had not received complaint letters from residents.
14) He said Pakistan railways has ordered a probe to determine the cause of the crash.
15) Police officer Nadeem said the bus driver, who died in the accident, had apparently seen the train.
16) ``Some people have told us that the bus developed a fault while crossing the rail track and its driver could not alert passengers in time,'' he said.
17) The train was traveling between the towns of Lalamusa and Sargodha.
18) Pakistan's railway system is old and accidents are relatively common. In the last two years, hundreds of people have died in crashes. Critics accuse authorities of not spending enough money to maintain the system.
19) Pakistan's bloodiest train crash in recent years was in also in Punjab in 1997, when an express train's brakes failed and it jumped its tracks, crushing two coaches and killing 125 people and wounding 150. Twenty of the dead were children.
Three Germans killed in Hungary as train crashes into car
(APW_ENG_20040713.0355)
1) A passenger train and a car collided Tuesday at a railway crossing near Lake Balaton, killing three Germans, police said. No one on the train was injured.
2) A 68-year-old man, a 64-year-old woman and a girl died at the scene, said Veszprem County police spokeswoman Piroska Varadi. Another girl had been taken to a hospital with life-threatening injuries.
3) Based on information gathered from the victims' passports, the couple appeared to be the grandparents of the children, Varadi said.
4) The two girls were aged 9 and 7. Their names were not released. Varadi said it was unclear which of the two children had been killed.
5) The accident happened in the town of Balatonederics, some 160 kilometers (100 miles) southwest of Budapest, on the north coast of Lake Balaton, Hungary's most popular tourist destination.
6) Varadi told The Associated Press that there was a road sign but no barrier or light signal to indicate the railway crossing.
7) In May 2003, 32 German tourists and a driver were killed when their bus was hit by a train on a crossing in the lakeside town of Siofok. That crossing was equipped only with flashing light signals, and the government later promised to put up barriers at railway crossings around the Balaton, which is Europe's largest freshwater lake.
8) About half of Hungary's some 6,000 railway crossings are protected with barriers.
Hungary commemorates railway accident which killed 32 German tourists, driver
(APW_ENG_20050508.0425)
1) Hungarian railway officials on Sunday commemorated the second anniversary of an accident in which 32 German tourists and a Hungarian driver were killed when a train hit their bus at a resort on Lake Balaton.
2) The accident happened on May 8, 2003, at a railway crossing that at the time was equipped only with warning lights. Barriers were installed a few months after the tragedy.
3) On Sunday, officials from Hungarian State Railways placed a wreath at the crossing near the town of Siofok on Lake Balaton, 100 kilometers (60 miles) southwest of Budapest.
4) "We want to remind people that there is nothing so urgent that they can allow themselves the risk of never getting there," railways director Gyula Gaal was quoted as saying by Hungarian state news wire MTI.
5) Only five people survived the 2003 Siofok accident, in which the bus driver ignored warning lights and began to cross the tracks despite an approaching train in an attempt to catch up with another bus it was traveling with in a convoy. The train was traveling at around 100 kilometers per hour (60 miles per hour) and cut the bus in two.
6) Lake Balaton is popular with German tourists, and before the 1989 fall of communism was used by East and West Germans to meet friends and family from the other side of the Iron Curtain.
7) Despite updated safety measures at dozens of Hungarian railway crossings, the number of deaths in similar accidents has increased in the last 12 months, railway officials said.
8) Fourteen people died in railway crossing accidents over the past year, compared with 12 in the previous 12-month period.
9) In 1982, 18 Hungarians died in a similar incident at the same crossing.
Train in Serbia nicks bus; no injuries reported
(APW_ENG_20050914.0990)
1) A train nicked a bus carrying a dozen passengers in central Serbia, but no injuries were reported, police said.
2) The accident occurred near the town of Jagodina, about 120 kilometers (72 miles) southeast of Belgrade while a passenger bus was crossing a railway.
3) None of the 12 passengers were injured, police said. The passengers were in the front of the bus and the train hit the rear, the official Tanjug news agency reported.
4) The train was traveling to neighboring Macedonia, in the south. The accident caused interruption of railway services.
Passenger train collides with double-decker bus in Argentina; 18 killed
(APW_ENG_20080309.0812)
1) A passenger train slammed into a double-decker bus at a rural Argentine rail crossing before dawn on Sunday, killing 18 people and injuring at least 47, authorities said.
2) The train was traveling from the Argentine capital to the Atlantic beach resort of Mar del Plata when the collision occurred near Dolores, about 125 miles (200 kilometers) south of Buenos Aires, the government's Telam news agency said.
3) State police said 18 people died, revising an earlier tally that had put total deaths at 19. Some 47 people were hospitalized with injuries, and nine remained in critical condition, public health official Roberto Capiel told Telam.
4) Television footage showed wreckage of the overturned bus with its windshield shattered and much of its roof sheered off. Crumpled bus seats, children's clothing, a baby bottle and beach chairs were left scattered across the railway line after the wreck, which took place at about 2 a.m. local time.
5) Bus passenger Cecilia Demarco told Noticias Argentinas that the vehicle "tried to beat the train" to the crossing, despite repeated warnings from the train as it sounded a horn. The account could not immediately be confirmed.
6) A Todo Noticias broadcast showed images of a crushed motorcycle under the debris and said authorities reported that a woman who had been waiting on a motorcycle at the crossing was among the dead.
7) A train passenger who identified himself only as Alejandro told the network he was preparing to go to sleep when the collision occurred.
8) "I heard this tremendous crash and everything shook" he said. "There were many screams, and all of this in the dark."
9) Police said the bus was carrying 61 passengers and two drivers.
10) Authorities said there were at least 30 severe injuries reported on the bus, while at least 15 train passengers and the two train drivers received minor injuries.
11) Buenos Aires provincial Gov. Daniel Scioli visited the crash site and promised an exhaustive investigation.
12) "It's just devastating, so tremendously sad. And to think there were families going on vacations is a disgrace," Scioli said.
13) Authorities said the train's drivers told investigators that the crossing barriers were down when the bus unexpectedly tried to cross the tracks.
12 dead in Romania after train hits bus
(APW_ENG_20090814.0604)
1) A train slammed into a bus Friday at a crossing in northeast Romania, killing 12 people and injuring four others, officials said.
2) The bus with 16 people on board appeared to have ignored signals at the crossing in the village of Scanteia, said emergency official Raed Arafat. He said the crossing had no barriers.
3) Ten bus passengers died immediately on impact and two died later, according to police spokeswoman Virginia Pralea.
4) The bus driver was hospitalized with severe injuries, while a child aged 7 or 8 was among the dead, said another emergency official, Diana Cimpoesu.
5) Nobody on board the train was reported injured.
6) Officials said the train pushed the bus for about 200 meters (yards) after the collision, which happened near the Scanteia railway station. The train was traveling about 50 mph (80 kph) at the time.
7) Romanian National Railways says about 30 people died in collisions at railway crossings in 2008, and seven this year before Friday's crash.
8) Some crossings have no signals or barriers. Others have short barriers, which allow drivers willing to take the risk to weave their way past the obstables.