Two dead in a collision between a train and a car on a level crossing in Brye, in the entity of Fleurus – © RTBF
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It was a very violent collision that occurred between a passenger train and a car Thursday evening around 8:15 p.m. on a level crossing in Brye, a small village in the entity of Fleurus. The two occupants of the vehicle died instantly. The passengers on the train were not injured. The impact was so severe that the car was dragged for almost 500 meters before the train came to a stop. Lieutenant Frédéric Martin, from the Hainaut-Est rescue zone, was one of the first firefighters on site:“When you get there, at the level crossing, you don’t notice much because nothing is happening. And it’s by looking a little further away that you realize that there is a convoy immobilized on rails”, he explains. “When we arrive near the train, we notice that there is a car embedded in the front of the train and which has been dragged for more than 500 meters. And there is no doubt that the two occupants have already died. By seeing the state of the car, one realizes the violence of the shock. “ The extrication operations lasted nearly four hours. “We had to call in reinforcements, set up lighting, Infrabel had to cut the current on the line, in short, significant resources and a lot of difficulties for the firefighters”says Lieutenant Martin.
Rail traffic on line 140 between Ottignies and Charleroi has been cut and shuttles have been set up by SNCB. The operations to free the vehicle and clear the tracks lasted a good part of the night. And it is not at all certain that train traffic will be restored this Friday morning. According to the first observations made by the Charleroi prosecution and Infrabel, the level crossing was working properly. The investigation will have to confirm whether it is indeed an imprudence of the driver of the car.
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