Four people were killed and five injured late Monday when a freight train derailed in central Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), officials said.
The accident happened at the village of Bena-Kadiebue, 65km north of Kananga, the capital of Central Kasai province.
“The toll is still provisional, because the freight cars are lying on their side,” Francois Mutambue, a senior official with the national railway company at Kananga, told AFP on Tuesday.
“Sand deposits” on the track were to blame for the accident, he said.
Railways accidents in DRC are frequent and often deadly. Decrepit track and ageing locomotives are the most-cited causes.
On November 12, 35 people, many of them clandestine passengers, were killed when a freight train carrying 13 oil tankers plunged into a ravine in Lualaba province.
Monday’s accident was the third in Central Kasai this month.
