Rescue efforts started immediately, with ambulances and emergency vehicles from Firefighters, Civil Defence, City Ambulances, Private Hospital Ambulances, Airport Ambulances, Railway Personel, Federal and Municipal Police, two rescue helicopters all evacuating and transferring injured to the nearest hospitals - non stop for four hours. A traumatic experience, not only for the victims, but for the rescuers as well, being confronted with horrific injuries and mangled bodies.
The train engineers war cut out of his cabin and transferred to a hospital. He had communicated brake problems to the railway company just before the accident.
Buenos Aires public transport at rush hours is unimaginable - people are packed tight into every available space on trains, buses and subways.
Being a communter train, many carry their bicycles on the trains, to continue their way to work after disembarking from the train.
Passengers were extracted through windows and a couple of doors, which still could be opened.
About 130 people were trapped inside the most damaged waggon.
Firefighters with the help of railway personnel used chainsaws to cut through waggon roofs, erected a tri-pod, and extracted trapped victims one by one through a tight roof opening.
Four hours of non stop work by rescue workers, paramedics, doctors, nurses, police, firemen, people in suits....extracting injured passengers, running their stretchers to triage spots on sidewalks and platforms, and transporting them via helicopter or one of the dozen ambulances to hospitals.
One ambulance crashed on the way.
All ambulances were accompanied by police motorcycles.
Helicopter crews arrived and left at intervals of minutes of delivery of seriously injured - one after the other.
Roads around the railwaystation were blocked to facilitate transport of victims.
An incredible effort of co operation in response to the worst rail tragedy in 80 years.
By 12:30 the evacuation of victims was complete. What was left - extract the bodies of the dead.
About 600 injured and hospitalized. Their names are being read over all TV Channels, to notify relatives, who are already arriving at the trainstation and hospitals to find their friends and family members, who left this morning to start a normal workday - and did not arrive.
So far - 49 bodies have been recovered.
A shocking and heartbreaking tragedy .....
Investiagion of the accident has already started. Lack or mismanagement of investment is mentioned, this particular train dates back to the Fifties, cost cutting allows them to work with 4 brake systems instead of the regular 8. Union officials are commenting on lack of funds for maintenance, citizens are outraged.
Quotes of alleged government mis-spending are making the rounds in social networking sites and media, for instance: govenment invests 400 mill for roads, 1200 mill for "football for every one", untold millions for gratis public entertainment and parades....how much if any for aging infrastructure?
Officials such as Secretary of Transport, Chief of Civil Defense, Chief of Ambulance System, Union Chiefs, Hospital Spokesmen all express their various points of view openly on television interviews on site - and quote the sad facts.
So far La Presidenta is silent...
A day of mourning for Buenos Aires and Argentina.
