A few weeks ago, a major accident shocked Slovakia: An international high-speed train collides with a public transit bus on a level crossing neat the city of Nové Zámky. The sad result of this catastrophe: seven people have lost their lives, additional five people were seriously injured. The accident happened on Thursday, June 27th, at about 5 pm, approximately 80 kilometers in the eat of the capital Bratislava.

The surprising detail of this disaster:  The company S&S Schliess- und Sicherungssysteme from Mühlhausen, Germany, has developed the machine room door of this locomotive, which proved to be life-saving retrospectively. The door prevented the fire, caused by leaking fuel of the bus, from entering the machine room of the locomotive.  The train driver and passengers in the following wagons could therefore escape the burning inferno. The driver's cab burned out completely.

According to the media there were 200 passengers on the train and 9 people on the bus.The collision was  so severe that the bus was ripped into two parts. The train driver escaped the driver's cab only seconds before the crash thorugh a machine room door produced in Mühlhausen. Due to the enormous heat, the driver suffered minor burns. However, he was able to prevent the derailment of the train and hence further injuries of the passengers. All dead victims were passengers of the bus.

Train passengers could escape with minor injuries

Katarina Molnárová, a passenger of the accident train reported to the  press agency AFP about  a „stroke and a bang“, shortly after the train has left the station in Nové Zámky. „After a few minutes we could leave the train. The front part of the train was completely in flames but there was no shouting or panicking. The passengers took their luggage and went to the street.“, Molnárová explained to a reporter.