and STEPHEN MUIRURI

Wagons of the ill-fated train are strewn at the scene of the accident (Pic: Joseph Mathenge)

Thirty-two people were killed on the spot and at least 100 other passengers were seriously injured when the night train from Nairobi to Mombasa jumped the track shortly before dawn yesterday.

The Kenya Railways train was carrying 645 passengers, including 60 foreigners and 31 crew.

Initial reports said the dead included one tourist, a woman, although the Reuters news agency later put the number of foreigners killed at five.

The train crashed at 4:15 am inside Tsavo National Park.

A high ranking Kenya Railways official at the scene said preliminary investigations showed the accident could have been caused by "over-speeding and a serious lapse of judgement on the part of the drivers".

The crew claimed the crash happened when the brakes failed.

"The train started to move very fast. We overturned twice before it landed. When I got outside, it was total confusion, total agony," conductor Abel Otete said.

Survivors said they were forced to break carriage windows to help other passengers because the doors were locked.

However, the doors and windows of the overnight train are always locked to prevent thieves jumping on at stops along the route.

Sixteen carriages in the middle section, mainly the third class compartments, lay on their backs or sides at the scene, some of them badly mangled.

They were lay across the bush, either jammed on top of each other or sprawled at angles to the track.

The engine which was pulling 22 coaches rested firm on its rails after the accident, completely unscathed.

The area strewn with debris.

Boxes of wine and vegetables, shoes, blankets and other personal items lay scattered on the ground.

"There were a lot of dead and dying," said Daniel Burstow, a 20-year-old British geography student from Sussex University.

"One of the carriages in third class was thrown upside down and that is where the people died," said Michael Greenwood, a 59-year-old U.S. citizen from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Ms Danielle Delmas, a survivor who works for Air France in Paris and was escorting a group of 13 French tourists, said she saw 40 dead, including two French people from a separate group.

The dead French woman was later named as Ms Laura Florence.

Of the 60 foreign passengers, 38 were said to be French, eight German, six Americans, four British, two Dutch, one Asian and one Brazilian.

It was the third in a series of rail crashes that have now claimed a total of 126 lives at Tsavo.

Twenty-nine people were killed in 1976 when a train crashed off the Darajani Bridge.

Then in 1993, 65 people died when the Mombasa-Nairobi express plunged into the swollen Ngai Ndeithya river. The name, in the local Kamba language, means God Help Me.

The latest crash took place a few kilometres from Chyulu Hills - just as the engine driver was making the last detour in a zig-zag section before the line crosses the Tsavo River.

The scene of the crash bears the name Man Eaters; given after repeated chilling attacks by two rogue lions - commemorated in the recent film The Ghost and the Darkness - on workers building the line at the turn of the century.

The engine driver and his assistant - named as Mr D. Mang'are and Mr F.A. Wachirah - were among the survivors.

The bodies of the victims were collected by rescue teams from the Kenya Air Force and Kenya Wildlife Service, placed in black polythene body-bags and loaded on open trucks and taken to the mortuary at Voi District Hospital, 45 kilometres away.

The manager of the train, Mr N.M. Marete who escaped with minor injuries, said the coaches could have left the tracks "due to overspeeding at a meanderous section".

The crash happened near a camp used by workmen from the Chinese Roads and Bridges Construction Company, who are currently carrying repairing the Nairobi- Mombasa Highway.

They provided bulldozer to help separate the mangled coaches from each other and in clearing scrub around the scene to help the quick evacuation of the injured.

The train had left Nairobi for the Coast on Tuesday at 7pm. It was expected to arrive at Mombasa at 8:05 am yesterday..

Among the first to arrive at the scene was Coast Provincial Commissioner Samuel Limo and Taita Taveta District Commissioner Callistus Okello.

Health Minister Jackson Kalweo and the Director of Medical Services Prof Julius Meme flew to the scene in a chartered helicopter at 1.15pm to assess the situation.

The minister described the enthusiasm and zeal with which the rescuers went about their work as "incredible ... the thing that makes Kenya a great country."

With them arrived a specialised team of doctors and paramedics from Kenyatta Hospital.

However by the time the minister and his team arrived all the injured had been evacuated by KWS and Kenya Air Force pilots.

President Moi sent a message of condolences to families, relatives and friends of those who died, saying he learnt of the tragedy with deep sorrow.

The President asked medical staff in government and private hospitals to give extra time to attend to the injured.

Police Commissioner Philemon Abongo later said he did not know the nationalities of the dead foreigners because the priority was to get the injured to hospital.

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