Transport and Interior Minister Florencio Randazzo said last night’s crash was caused by ‘sabotage’ (Photo: Carlos Brigo/Télam/dsl)
“The passenger diesel train number 2277, which was headed to the Gutiérrez station [on the General Roca suburban line], ignored the warning of two red signals and rammed the locomotive 921, which was conducting coupling manoeuvres at the marshalling yard in Temperley,” declared the state-owned rail operator, which took over the management of the Roca line in March.
Although no one suffered serious injuries, all were transferred to a hospital as a precaution. One of the injured remains at the hospital with a hip fracture.
At a press conference held in the Casa Rosada this morning, presidential candidate Randazzo said the government was not discarding any hypothesis, but stated his firm belief that it was not a simple accident.
“I don’t believe in coincidences, I believe in causalities. We are 24 hours from a strike,” he said, and indicated the possible involvement of the union representing train drivers, La Fraternidad, which is one of the unions that called the national strike taking place tomorrow.
Randazzo released an audio recording that revealed that the train driver Diego Sánchez failed to respond to repeated calls from the control tower to stop the train. “These are not interpretations, they are concrete facts that we have handed over to the judiciary, which we hope will act quickly to determine if there is a mafia behind all of this.”
Randazzo also associated the crash with the electoral campaign: “We are 12 days from the closure of candidate lists and I’m a pre-candidate [to be the Frente para la Victoria’s presidential candidate].” The minister added that the incident occurred just hours before he was due to inaugurate 52 new train carriages this morning at Temperley station.
Union leader Omar Maturano rejected Randazzo’s accusations, assuring that the crash was caused by a human or technical failure. “Randazzo always lies, this is not the first time. He says the train passed through two red signals, but this could never happen. If it goes through one, the train has to stop. And there aren’t even two signals in that stretch of 50m. The next signal is at 200m.”
Last night’s incident was the third train crash on the Buenos Aires suburban lines since the tragedy at Once station that killed 51 people and injured over 700 in February 2012.
In June 2013, three people died in a train crash in Castelar, and a few months later more than 100 people were injured after another crash at Once station.
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