An Israeli train carrying 200 passengers hit a stationary van in its path and derailed today, killing at least five people and injuring dozens, rescue services said.
The impact threw the locomotive on top of one carriage. Three others lay on their sides in a mass of twisted metal.
Medics carried the injured on stretchers along the tracks at Beit Yehoshua, a farming village in central
Israeli soldiers and rescue workers clamber over the derailed locomotive and carriages in a search for survivors.
Israel. Several passengers were trapped for two hours before rescuers stabilised their carriage and pulled them out.
Police said the train, travelling from Tel Aviv's Ben-Gurion airport to the northern port of Haifa, ran into a van that had stopped at a rail crossing but was pushed on to the tracks by another vehicle that hit it from behind.
"The truck simply stopped on the track and the driver managed to get out before the train slammed into it," a witness, who identified herself only as Miri, told Israel Radio.
Ambulances and evacuation helicopters rushed to the scene. Rescuers clambered over carriages and dazed passengers walked along the tracks, while others used mobile telephones to call loved ones.
Rescue services, updating casualty figures, said at least five people were killed and about 60 injured. Earlier accounts said several people were dead and up to 150 hurt.
There was no suggestion from Israeli authorities that the van had been pushed on to the tracks deliberately. Dudi Cohen, the local police chief, described the collision between the two vehicles at the crossing as a traffic accident.
Another witness, Avi Adsawi, said the train was not full at the time of the crash, several hours after the morning rush hour.
"People on the cars in front were getting off bleeding and crying," he said.
In June 2005, seven people were killed and more than 150 injured when a passenger train hit a truck south of Tel Aviv.