The Ciurea rail disaster, known in
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
as the Ciurea catastrophe ( ro, Catastrofa de la Ciurea), occurred on 13 January 1917, during
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. It occurred at
Ciurea Station, in
Iași County
Iași County () is a county (județ) of Romania, in Western Moldavia, with the administrative seat at Iași. It is the most populous county in Romania, after the Municipality of Bucharest (which has the same administrative level as that of a coun ...
, a train station with a
passing loop
A passing loop (UK usage) or passing siding (North America) (also called a crossing loop, crossing place, refuge loop or, colloquially, a hole) is a place on a single line railway or tramway, often located at or near a station, where trains or ...
, located on the railway line from
Iași
Iași ( , , ; also known by other alternative names), also referred to mostly historically as Jassy ( , ), is the second largest city in Romania and the seat of Iași County. Located in the historical region of Moldavia, it has traditionally ...
to
Bârlad
Bârlad () is a city in Vaslui County, Romania. It lies on the banks of the river Bârlad, which waters the high plains of Western Moldavia.
At Bârlad the railway from Iași diverges, one branch skirting the river Siret, the other skirting th ...
. There was no formal investigation and the exact cause of the accident is unknown. The death toll is also uncertain, with most sources indicating between 800 and 1,000 deaths.
With these estimates, the Ciurea rail disaster is the
second worst rail accident in world history by death toll, after the
2004 Sri Lanka tsunami train wreck
The 2004 Sri Lanka tsunami train wreck is the largest single rail disaster in world history by death toll, with 1,700 fatalities or more. It occurred when a crowded passenger train was destroyed on a coastal railway in Sri Lanka by a tsunami whi ...
.
The accident
![Catastrofa_de_la_Ciurea_-_1917](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/Catastrofa_de_la_Ciurea_-_1917.jpg)
Train E-1,
nicknamed "The Courier", consisting of 26 cars, left
Galați
Galați (, , ; also known by other alternative names) is the capital city of Galați County in the historical region of Western Moldavia, in eastern Romania. Galați is a port town on the Danube River. It has been the only port for the most par ...
for
Iași
Iași ( , , ; also known by other alternative names), also referred to mostly historically as Jassy ( , ), is the second largest city in Romania and the seat of Iași County. Located in the historical region of Moldavia, it has traditionally ...
on Friday, . It was running several hours late as the station had been bombed by
German airplanes and its locomotive had been hit by bombs and had to be replaced. The train included residents of
Muntenia
Muntenia (, also known in English as Greater Wallachia) is a historical region of Romania, part of Wallachia (also, sometimes considered Wallachia proper, as ''Muntenia'', ''Țara Românească'', and the seldom used ''Valahia'' are synonyms in R ...
, who felt threatened by German bombs falling in nearby Galați, as well as the occupation of
Brăila
Brăila (, also , ) is a city in Muntenia, eastern Romania, a port on the Danube and the capital of Brăila County. The ''Sud-Est'' Regional Development Agency is located in Brăila.
According to the 2011 Romanian census there were 180,302 pe ...
by the
German Army
The German Army (, "army") is the land component of the armed forces of Germany. The present-day German Army was founded in 1955 as part of the newly formed West German ''Bundeswehr'' together with the ''Marine'' (German Navy) and the ''Luftwaf ...
. They were joined on the train by students and soldiers on leave. As well as Romanians, the train's passengers included
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
officers and soldiers, and members of the
French military mission
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with France ...
.
Among the best-known travellers were
Emil Costinescu, a former Minister of Finance, Yvonne Blondel, daughter of a former French ambassador to Bucharest, geographer
George Vâlsan
George Vâlsan (January 22, 1885 – August 6, 1935) was a Romanian geographer and writer.
Biography Education and career
Born in Bucharest, he attended primary school in Iași and Craiova, and began high school in Pitești. He completed secondar ...
, and a French official, the Marquis de Belloy. The train quickly became overcrowded, and more cars were added as the train proceeded along its route, with the train sometimes waiting for hours as hundreds of travellers tried to find space.
Travel conditions were terrible: the wagons, many of them boxcars, illuminated by gas lamps, were cold; the windows had no glass, but planks that could not keep out the cold air. Travellers sitting on the roofs of the wagons died from the cold temperatures. "To our horror, a man and a 10-year-old boy were taken down frozen. Other shadows that were staggering, hardened by cold, recounted that, at some curves, many people – men and women – had been thrown off the train," Yvonne Blondel wrote.
The train stopped overnight in
Bârlad
Bârlad () is a city in Vaslui County, Romania. It lies on the banks of the river Bârlad, which waters the high plains of Western Moldavia.
At Bârlad the railway from Iași diverges, one branch skirting the river Siret, the other skirting th ...
after heavy snowfall had blocked the line, despite the efforts of soldiers and railwaymen to clear it. The next day, on 12 January, the convoy continued towards Iași, traveling . It reached Ciurea around one o'clock the next morning, when the accident occurred.
After the last stop at
Bârnova
Bârnova is a commune in Iași County, Western Moldavia, Romania, part of the Iași Metropolitan Area
The Iași Metropolitan Area is a metropolitan association in Iași County, Romania, that includes the municipality of Iași and 19 nearby comm ...
, the train reached Ciurea station, just a few kilometers from Iași. When the crew members tried to reduce speed, they realised that the brakes, despite having been checked at
Bălteni station, were not functioning. According to the newspaper "''Mișcarea''", the compressed air brake system functioned only for the first two wagons, the valve being accidentally closed at the third wagon. The train derailed and collided with a locomotive standing on another line. The locomotive's speedometer needle was found stuck at , — the probable speed of the train at the moment of the accident. A survivor commented: "I sensed perfectly how the train jumped off the rails like a monstrous reptile of iron and steel, pulling all its travelers to mutilation or on the great journey to beyond... I had the feeling that I was thrown into the bottom of a pit, a rain of objects sliding around my body... How long did this torment last? A few minutes, but to me it seemed interminable...".
Receiving signals sent by the engineers of the stricken locomotives, Ciurea railway station employees activated a switch so that the train would enter line 2 and avoid collision with wagons filled with tar that were stopped on line 1. Because of the high speed and sharp angle, however, only the locomotive and one wagon managed to enter line 2; all but two of the other cars derailed. It seems that at least one of the wagons collided with some fuel tanks, triggering an explosion and a huge fire. The train burned in less than two hours. Yvonne Blondel was rescued by two soldiers of the French military mission, who pulled her out of the train wreck exactly when her clothes were ablaze. Other passengers died in the fire or were killed by the impact of the derailment.
Those traveling on the roofs of the wagons were either thrown under the train cars and crushed, or thrown into the snow. The same French survivor describes the scenes of the tragedy, including the emergence of looters, who robbed the travellers. Teams of rescuers arrived soon after – soldiers of the ammunition depot near the train station, railway workers, two companies of Romanian soldiers, and two companies of Russian soldiers. The survivors were transported to the
Iași railway station
Iași railway station is the main railway station in Iași, and one of the oldest in Romania. It is part of the Pan-European Corridor IX.
History
Opened in 1870, the Grand Railway Station first connected Iași to Chernivtsi in Bukovina, Austria- ...
, where they were given first aid.
Lack of information
The lack of information on the accident is due primarily to the exceptional situation in which the Romanian state found itself at the time.
The
Kingdom of Romania
The Kingdom of Romania ( ro, Regatul României) was a constitutional monarchy that existed in Romania from 13 March ( O.S.) / 25 March 1881 with the crowning of prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen as King Carol I (thus beginning the Romanian ...
was at war with the
Central Powers
The Central Powers, also known as the Central Empires,german: Mittelmächte; hu, Központi hatalmak; tr, İttifak Devletleri / ; bg, Централни сили, translit=Tsentralni sili was one of the two main coalitions that fought in ...
, and the government, the military, and most citizens took refuge in
Moldavia
Moldavia ( ro, Moldova, or , literally "The Country of Moldavia"; in Romanian Cyrillic: or ; chu, Землѧ Молдавскаѧ; el, Ἡγεμονία τῆς Μολδαβίας) is a historical region and former principality in Centr ...
, while
Muntenia, including its capital Bucharest, and Dobruja were occupied. Given the national crisis, few newspapers reported the accident. It is not very clear whether there was an investigation, or what its results may have been. Primary sources of information are limited to the testimony of survivors, memoirs, press, and
interwar
In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days), the end of the First World War to the beginning of the Second World War. The interwar period was relativel ...
publications that have addressed the issue.
Likewise, doubts have been cast on whether the photo of the accident circulated by the media was authentic and depicted the actual derailment at Ciurea. Taken, as stated, on , it shows no trace of snow, although two distinct memoirs mention passengers surviving because they were thrown off the train into banks of snow. As such, this photo is not dated correctly.
It is known that Ciurea was the site of several railway accidents during the early twentieth century, with one known incident taking place in 1925. The photo may well have been taken on one of those other occasions.
Aftermath
In the first hours after the accident, several officials arrived at the scene – , Minister of Public Works, the prosecutor general, the prefect of Iași, but also security agents who began to question witnesses. By the morning, the news of the accident had spread throughout the city. Daylight revealed the magnitude of the tragedy: "Passing through Ciurea I looked the disaster: wagons crushed, burned and teams of workers drew more dead from under the wreck. Behind the station the dead were lined up in four rows ... several hundreds. With eyes removed, heads broken, arms detached, hands, legs, burned bodies. Women, officers, soldiers...". Another notes: "A whole string of wagons burnt, not even with their the metal skeletion, soaked like wax by the fire that consumed it... around the station everything seemed ruins and grave...".
Hundreds of bodies were found among the twisted metal remnants of the train cars. The victims were laid out near the station and countless calls were made to people to help identify them. Very few of the bodies were ever identified. They were buried in mass graves on the field behind the Ciurea station,
for the victims identified by then – 374 people.
Among the dead were lieutenant Vasile Cantacuzino, son of eminent jurist and politician
Matei B. Cantacuzino
Matei B. Cantacuzino (July 10, 1855 – August 10, 1925) was a Romanian jurist and politician.
A scion of the Cantacuzino family, his parents were Basile Cantacuzino and Pulcheria Rosetti-Bălănescu; he had four sisters (one of whom died in ...
, and commander Alexandru Cătuneanu, author of the first navigation map of the
Black Sea
The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Roma ...
. The historian
Vasile Pârvan
Vasile Pârvan (; 28 September 1882, Huruiești, Perchiu, Huruiești, Bacău County – 26 June 1927, Bucharest) was a Romanian historian and archaeologist.
Biography
Vasile Pârvan came from a modest family, being the first child of the teach ...
was injured in the accident,
and so was the geographer
George Vâlsan
George Vâlsan (January 22, 1885 – August 6, 1935) was a Romanian geographer and writer.
Biography Education and career
Born in Bucharest, he attended primary school in Iași and Craiova, and began high school in Pitești. He completed secondar ...
.
Over the next several days, provisional lists of names of the identified dead were announced. Rumours soon began to spread: there were discussions about fortunes destroyed in the fire or looted by thieves, the death toll was amplified, and famous names were fraudulently added to the lists of victims. In German-occupied Muntenia, a memoirist wrote about reports of the accident, noting with malicious joy "the death of
Take Ionescu
Take or Tache Ionescu (; born Dumitru Ghiță Ioan and also known as Demetriu G. Ionnescu; – 21 June 1922) was a Romanian centrist politician, journalist, lawyer and diplomat, who also enjoyed reputation as a short story author. Starting his ...
,
Cantacuzino
The House of Cantacuzino (french: Cantacuzène) is a Romanian aristocratic family of Greek origin. The family gave a number of princes to Wallachia and Moldavia, and it claimed descent from a branch of the Byzantine Kantakouzenos family, specifica ...
(Minister of Justice), Costinescu (Minister of Finance)".
Memorials
In January 2017, a
wayside cross
Wayside may refer to:
* Wayobjects, trackside objects
*Wayside (band), an early version of As Friends Rust
* ''Wayside'' (TV series), a television show based on the children's book ''Sideways Stories from Wayside School''
*A rest area
Places
; ...
(''troiță'') was erected by the
Ciurea
Ciurea is a commune in Iași County, Western Moldavia, Romania, part of the Iași metropolitan area. Situated 7 km south from the county seat of Iași, it is composed of seven villages: Ciurea, Curături, Dumbrava, Hlincea, Lunca Cetățuii, ...
town hall near the train station in memory of the unidentified victims of the 1917 disaster. Next to the cross, the Romanian Maritime Hydrographic Directorate installed a
commemorative plaque
A commemorative plaque, or simply plaque, or in other places referred to as a historical marker, historic marker, or historic plaque, is a plate of metal, ceramic, stone, wood, or other material, typically attached to a wall, stone, or other ...
for commander Alexandru Cătuneanu.
References
{{1910s railway accidents
Railway accidents in 1917
Runaway train disasters
Iași County
1917 in Romania
Derailments in Romania
January 1917 events