At least one person has lost their life and thirteen others have been injured, two of them in serious condition, after a high-speed train collided with a military truck at a level crossing located in the town of Noeux-les-Mines, in the department of Pas-de-Calais, in northern France.
The high-speed train, TGV, which was traveling from the city of Dunkirk bound for Paris, has suffered a collision with a heavy military vehicle that was coming from maneuvers in Belgium leaving one dead, the driver, as well as a dozen injured, several seriously, in an accident that took place at 7:00 AM (local time), according to television channel TF1.
The convoy, in which 243 passengers were traveling, ended up derailing after the impact with the heavy vehicle that was transporting military material and that was not carrying military personnel on board at the time of the accident.
According to what the French Minister of Transport, Philippe Tabarot, informed early in the day, the general director of the French National Railway Company (SNCF), former Prime Minister Jean Castex, has traveled to the area, while the railway line affected by the accident has been closed until further notice.
A hundred firefighters, Emergency Medical Service personnel, as well as police officers and dozens of civil protection volunteers have been mobilized to the area. The SNFC has chartered six buses to transport the passengers of the damaged train.