The Tenga rail disaster of May 25, 2002 occurred at Tenga

Tenga, Mozambique

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 40 km north-west from Maputo

Maputo

Maputo, also known as Lourenço Marques, is the capital and largest city of Mozambique. It is known as the City of Acacias in reference to acacia trees commonly found along its avenues and the Pearl of the Indian Ocean. It was famous for the inscription "This is Portugal" on the walkway of its...

, Mozambique

Mozambique

Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...

 with heavy loss of life; there were 192 deaths and 167 injured.

Overview

The train comprised carriages containing 600 people and several wagons loaded with South African cement. The carriages were uncoupled about 5 km from Tenga, possibly as part of a manoeuvre by the train crew. The carriages then rolled down the line into Tenga, and crashed into the stationary rail wagons loaded with cement from the train which were coupled to the locomotive.

Three days of mourning were declared by then President of Mozambique Joaquim Chissano

Joaquim Chissano

Joaquim Alberto Chissano served as the second President of Mozambique for nineteen years from 6 November 1986 until 2 February 2005. Since stepping down as president, Chissano has become an elder statesman and is called upon by international bodies, such as the United Nations, to be an envoy or...

.

Cause

The crash was blamed on human error and a manoeuvre that went wrong. It appears that the crew were intending to go back and pick up the carriages. The worst casualties were in the first two carriages. Hence it appears that the carriages crashed into part of the same train, not a following train.

The government declared three days of national mourning, after what was the worst rail crash in the history of Mozambique.

Similar accidents

Similar accidents can help explain the current one.
Armagh rail disaster

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 (1889) Chapel-en-le-Frith

John Axon

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 (1957) Gare de Lyon train accident

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 (1988) Igandu train disaster

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(2002)