France: 30 injured as train crashes into truck at Nangis level crossing

Thirty people have been injured after a passenger train collided with a special convoy articulated lorry 50km from Paris on Tuesday 21 April.

The Intercité 1646 train, which was travelling from Belfort to Paris with 350 on board, rammed into the lorry at a level crossing in Nangis, in the Seine et Marne department, where the vehicle that was transporting tractors had stopped for unknown reasons.

The shock was so violent that five train cars derailed, but did not tip over. According to a local official, two people including the train driver and a passenger are critically injured.

They were transported to hospital and their prognosis is not yet known, said a spokesman of the prefecture.

'Not particularly accident-prone'

This crossing, at the entrance of Nangis Station to the east of Paris, was "not particularly accident-prone," the city mayor Michel Billout said.

The French Ministry of the Interior tweeted a series of photos, showing the violent impact between the two vehicles.

"We felt shaking and we started to slow down [and heard] a big boom," one of the passengers, Hugo, told Europe 1.

The young man explained that the truck was "split in two", and the rails torn after the impact.