At least 35 people were killed and 64 injured when two trains collided head-on at a station in Indonesia's West Java province Sunday, a railway official said.
"By now, 4:00 pm (0900 GMT), 35 people were killed," Gatot Wibowo, a spokesman for state railways company PT Kereta Api Indonesia, told the private ElShinta radio station from the coastal city of Cirebon.
The two trains -- a locomotive of the Cirebon Express and the Empu Jaya train from Jakarta and bound for Yogyakarta, Central Java -- collided at the main station of the coastal city of Cirebon at 3:45 am (2045 GMT Saturday), he said.
"It looks like the results of human error ... the Empu Jaya ignored signals and entered the station without reducing speed," Wibowo said.
He said the conductor of the Empu Jaya might have been "sleepy,” adding that the conductor and his assistant were among the fatalities. The Empu Jaya rammed into the Cirebon Express as it was trying to switch tracks at the station.
Wibowo spoke just an hour after the last of the victims were recovered from the wreckage. Earlier he had announced 31 were killed and five more were dead but still trapped in the wreckage.
He gave no reason for the discrepancy but said he was not sure of the exact numbers of people who were found dead at the scene and who had died in hospital.
Forty-one people were being treated at three hospitals in Cirebon with others already discharged.
The Antara news agency quoted the head official at Cirebon station, Bidjak (Eds: one name) as saying that the Empu Jaya train had not "met procedures" while entering the station where the Cirebon Express was trying to change track.
Bidjak said the Empu Jaya was travelling at around 50 kilometres an hour (30 miles an hour) when it ploughed into the Cirebon Express.
Transport Minister Agum Gumelar, who has travelled to Cirebon to inspect the crash site and visit the victims, also told the radio station that "up until now, based on reports and from checks on the field, it looks like this is the result of human error".
He said he had ordered state railway company PT Kereta Api Indonesia to pay for the medical costs and burials.
Wibowo confirmed the railway company would pay 10 million rupiah (about 1,100 dollars) to permanently injured passengers and to the family of each dead passenger. It will also pay out about 2.5 million rupiah (277 dollars) for injured passengers' medical costs.
The accident led to the cancellation of all services on the northern coast of Java. Cirebon is one of the main stations on the line linking West and Central Java.
Wibowo said the company had mobilised heavy machinery from Jakarta and Cikampek to clear wreckage from the track, but he added the operation would be put on hold until all the victims had been recovered.
"We estimate that as from 10:00 am we would need nine hours to clear the tracks, and during that time, the tracks would be closed," he said.
Wibowo later said trains would be running again from 7:00 pm -- JAKARTA (AFP)
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