On Saturday afternoon, a stationary tram at the underground stop at Strasbourg’s main railway station was violently hit by another tram, which began to move backwards for unknown reasons.
Both trams carried dozens of passengers.
Around a hundred people escaped unharmed.
Video footage posted online showed chaotic scenes with the two trams significantly damaged, an alarm going off and people screaming.
“As we were setting off again towards the station, we realised that there was already another tram that had returned to the station. This tram was at a standstill, thank God,“ said Romaric Koumba, one of the passengers.
Another witness, Johan Kirschenbaum, said the moving train apparently had a problem with the brakes.
‘Very shocked’ drivers
Cellier said that the situation “could have been much more serious”.
Prosecutors said the collision was not deliberate.
The two drivers were not injured but were “very shocked,“ said the director of the Strasbourg transport company (CTS), Emmanuel Auneau.
Julien Joly, a transport and mobility expert at the consulting firm Wavestone, said collisions between trams were rare.
But Joly also said commuters could be reassured that trams remain “a safe mode of transport.”
The city saw a similar accident in 1998 when one tram collided with another in the same tunnel, wounding 17 people.
Located in the historic region of Alsace that shares borders with Germany and Switzerland, the city is the official seat of the European Parliament.
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