Train carrying at least 50 people derails on Norway’s north coast, killing at least 1 person

Train operator SJ said 90 tickets for the train had been sold but it could not immediately say how many people were on board.

Police spokesman Kenneth Lauritsen told the newspaper Dagbladet that one person had died in the derailment. Five or six people were injured. Police earlier had told Norwegian news agency NTB that people with minor injuries were found at the scene. They were alerted to the derailment at 1238 GMT.

Police told NTB that a rock slide likely caused the derailment. The VG newspaper carried a photo of a huge rock on the track that had smashed into a train carriage.

The Arctic Circle Express was on its way from Trondheim to the northern town of Bodoe. NTB, citing the Joint Rescue Coordination Center for northern Norway, said there were “between 50 and 70 people on board the train.”

“We think all the passengers are out. But we are doublechecking the train as we do not have a passenger list,” police spokesman Bent Are Eilertsen told Norwegian broadcaster TV 2.

One of the passengers, Ingvart Strand Mølster, told Norwegian broadcaster NRK that “a rock has hit the train.”

Strand Mølster said no one in his train carriage was hurt, with the exception of one person who suffered a minor ankle injury. Another passenger told the local newspaper Avisa Nordland that people were evacuated out through the windows.

NRK posted a video of the train which had left its mountainside tracks, crashing through trees and down onto the road, which was closed to traffic in the wake of the derailment.

Photos on Norwegian media showed the locomotive and what appeared to be at least two passenger cars. The derailment happened near Bodoe, just north of the Arctic Circle.

Jan M. Olsen, The Associated Press

by Canadian Press

Train carrying at least 50 people derails on Norway’s north coast, killing at least 1 person

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