Pretoria – Transport Minister Dipuo Peters has instructed the Railway Safety Regulator to immediately investigate the cause of Monday night’s Metrorail train accident in which over 200 people were injured.
“The Railway Safety Regulator must conduct a thorough inspection of the collision scene, call witnesses and produce a report and recommendations to ensure that proper action is taken at the conclusion of the investigation,” she said.
Peters instructed the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) to take immediate measures to improve safety and reliability of trains.
She said Prasa had to impose severe consequence management measures to ensure that incidences such as this became a thing of the past.
Two Prasa trains were involved in a head-on collision in which 20 passengers were seriously injured on Monday night at at Lynn Ross Station in Rosslyn.
Metrorail’s Lillian Mofokeng said technicians worked throughout the night and the train was operational again.
Mofokeng said the train service to Ga-Rankuwa had been restored.
She said it was not yet clear how the two trains crashed on the same track. De Wildt trains are using a single line between Rosslyn and De Wildt stations.
“Of the 216 commuters who suffered minor to moderate injuries, 207 have since been discharged from various hospitals around Pretoria,” said Mofokeng.
She said a board of inquiry would be instituted to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the cause of the accident and circumstances around it to prevent future occurrences.
DA spokesperson for roads and transport, Fred Nel, said the head-on collision raised serious concerns about rail commuter safety in Gauteng. “This is the second incident in a week after a Gautrain carriage derailed between Hatfield and Pretoria last week."
“The DA calls on the Rail Safety Regulator to expedite its investigations into these two matters."
“This must be done so that the root causes can be addressed without delay,” he said.