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What are the worst train accidents?

The 2004 Sri Lanka tsunami train wreck is the deadliest recorded train disaster in history, claiming the lives of at least 1,700 people. The incident was the result of a devastating tsunami caused by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, which caused severe destruction to railway infrastructure.



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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 (No 50, Matara Express) was destroyed on a coastal railway in Sri Lanka by a tsunami that followed the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake.

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Worst accidents The worst accident was the Quintinshill rail disaster in Scotland in 1915 with 226 dead and 246 injured. Second worst, and the worst in England, was the 1952 Harrow and Wealdstone rail crash, which killed 112 people and injured 340.

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There were eight non-workforce fatalities (passenger or public) in the year April 2022 to March 2023: three occurred in mainline stations and two at the platform-train interface; two passenger fatalities at stations on the London Underground; and one fatality from a collision between a member of the public and a tram.

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Nonetheless, the blemishes on the record have been appearing with concerning regularity in recent years. Until 2020, the 2007 derailment in Grayrigg was the last time a passenger died in a UK train crash – a huge turnaround after a succession of terrible accidents in the days of Railtrack around the millennium.

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Balasore, Odisha — Mohammad Afzal survived one of the worst train accidents in India's history, but remained in a state of high anxiety, unable to locate his friend who was in the same coach.

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Train Accident Statistics Trains are estimated to kill 1 person every 100 minutes. Each year nearly 1,000 people are killed in train related accidents. More than half of all railroad accidents occur at unprotected crossings. More than 80 percent of crossings lack adequate warning devices such as lights and gates.

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They aren't usually major disasters.

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Train derailments are quite common in the U.S. The Department of Transportations' Federal Railroad Administration has reported an average of 1,475 train derailments per year between 2005-2021. Despite the relatively high number of derailments, they rarely lead to disaster.

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1830. 15 September – United Kingdom – William Huskisson becomes the first widely reported passenger train death.

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The Ladbroke Grove rail crash was a rail accident which occurred on 5 October 1999 at Ladbroke Grove in London, England, when two passenger trains collided almost head-on after one of them had passed a signal at danger.



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The Great Train Wreck of 1918. On July 9, 1918, two passenger trains collided head-on in Nashville, Tennessee. Today, it remains the worst railroad accident in United States history.

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