The Tenga rail disaster of May 25, 2002 occurred at
Tenga 40 km north-west from
Maputo
Maputo (), formerly named Lourenço Marques until 1976, is the Capital city, capital, and largest city of Mozambique. Located near the southern end of the country, it is within of the borders with Eswatini and South Africa. The city has a popul ...
,
Mozambique
Mozambique (), officially the Republic of Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique or , ; ny, Mozambiki; sw, Msumbiji; ts, Muzambhiki), is a country located in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi ...
causing 192 deaths and 167 injured.
Overview
The train comprised carriages containing 600 people and several wagons loaded with South African cement. The carriages were uncoupled about 5 km from Tenga, possibly as part of a manoeuvre by the train crew. The carriages then rolled down the line into Tenga, and crashed into the stationary rail wagons loaded with cement from the train which were coupled to the locomotive.
Three days of mourning were declared by then
President of Mozambique Joaquim Chissano
Joaquim Alberto Chissano (born 22 October 1939) is a politician who served as the second President of Mozambique, from 1986 to 2005. He is credited with transforming the war-torn country of Mozambique into one of the most successful African demo ...
.
Cause
The crash was blamed on ''
human error
Human error refers to something having been done that was " not intended by the actor; not desired by a set of rules or an external observer; or that led the task or system outside its acceptable limits".Senders, J.W. and Moray, N.P. (1991) Human ...
'' and ''a manoeuvre that went wrong.''
It appears that the crew were intending to go back and pick up the carriages. The worst casualties were in the first two carriages. Hence it appears that the carriages crashed into part of the same train, not a following train.
Similar accidents
Similar accidents can help explain the current one.
*
Armagh rail disaster
The Armagh rail disaster happened on 12 June 1889 near Armagh, County Armagh, in Ireland, when a crowded Sunday school excursion train had to negotiate a steep incline; the steam locomotive was unable to complete the climb and the train stall ...
(1889)
*
Chapel-en-le-Frith
Chapel-en-le-Frith () is a town and civil parish in the Borough of High Peak in Derbyshire, England.
It has been dubbed the "Capital of the Peak", in reference to the Peak District, historically the upperland areas between the Saxon lands (belo ...
(1957)
*
Gare de Lyon train accident Gare is the word for "station" in French and related languages, commonly meaning train station, railway station
Gare can refer to:
People
* Gare (surname), surname
* The Gare Family, fictional characters in the novel ''Wild Geese (novel)#The Gare ...
(1988)
*
Igandu train disaster
The Igandu train disaster occurred during the early morning of June 24, 2002, in Tanzania. It is one of the worst rail accidents in African history. A passenger train with over 1,200 people on board rolled backwards down a hill into a slow movi ...
(2002)
See also
*
Railway stations in Mozambique
Railway stations in Mozambique include:
Towns served by railways
(The lines do not all connect, or connect indirectly)
Northern system
(northernmost) (CDN) (from west to east)
* Nayuchi - Malawi - border town.
* Malema - way station
** R ...
References
{{2002 railway accidents
2002 disasters in Africa
Railway accidents in 2002
Railway accidents and incidents in Mozambique
Runaway train disasters
May 2002 events in Africa