It was a close call. A farmer narrowly escaped a fatal collision with a TGV travelling at 140 km/h on Tuesday 27 August. Shortly before 8am, a TGV Inoui travelling between Brussels and Lille hit the trailer of a tractor stopped on a level crossing in Béclers, in the Belgian commune of Tournai, not far from the French border. A few moments earlier, the tractor trailer had come loose from the vehicle, leaving it stuck in the middle of the tracks.
The accident left two of the 120 passengers on board the train injured. They were evacuated by ambulance. The driver, who was in shock, was also taken care of. The other passengers were taken back to the station by buses, according to the emergency services present on the scene. “The firefighters provided logistical support for the evacuation of the injured and passengers. Perfect coordination between all the services present allowed everything to take place calmly and without any further accidents,” they explained in a post published on social networks.
According to the Belgian railway infrastructure manager Infrabel, the necessary repairs were carried out on the tracks a few hours after the collision. An investigation has been opened to determine the circumstances of the accident.
