A passenger train sped off the rails in the Democratic Republic of Congo, killing at least 57 people, the government said Wednesday.
On Tuesday, a bend in a swampy area in the southeast of the country caused the newly purchased locomotive to fly off the rails, prompting 15 of the train's 19 cars to overturn, said the government's spokesman and a journalist at the scene, Agence France-Presse reported.
As difficult rescue operations continued in the remote, swampy area, the official death toll remained murky.
While a journalist quoted a local official claiming that a toll of about 60 dead and 86 wounded had been counted, a local human rights activist, Timothee Mbuya, said that "so far at least 100 bodies have been taken from the train and buried, because there's no morgue."
The train, travelling north from the town of Kamina in the southern province of Katanga to Mwene-Ditu in the diamond-mining province of Kasai-Oriental, had sped out of control due to engine failure, government spokesman Lambert Mende said.
However, a thorough investigation was being carried out to figure out the exact reason for the crash.
Hundreds of passengers had paid an illegal reduced fare to ride the train without a proper ticket, witnesses said.
Many people were said to have been still trapped inside the wreckage, according to AFP.
"The activist I sent to the scene spoke of hearing cries from people stuck in the cars because there was no adequate emergency response," said Mbuya.
"People are trapped and they need a 100-tonne crane to lift the cars, but the area is inaccessible. The Mwyi river runs between the tracks and the road, and it's a swampy zone that can only be accessed on foot," said the journalist.
An army unit had been sent in to help in extracting both the wounded and the dead from the wreckage, he said.
