ANKARA, July 22 (AFP) - Nearly 140 people were killed and 57 injured when a packed express train traveling from Istanbul to the capital, Ankara, crashed Thursday in northwestern Turkey, officials said.
At least four of the train`s carriages overturned in the derailment near Pamukova town in Sakarya province, the town`s mayor, Feridun Turan, said.
Anatolia news agency said the carriages smashed into each other.
"Rescue workers are using heavy machinery to lift up the carriages and check underneath for dead and injured," he said.
"It is total chaos out here," he added.
A crisis centre set up in Ankara said that of the 243 people aboard the train, 139 had perished in the accident and 57 were injured. It gave no further details.
The earlier death toll, given by a senior official from the health ministry, was put at 128.
Anatolia quoted anonymous officials from the railway authority as saying that most of the casualties were in the first two carriages of the train and that the passengers in the remaining two carriages escaped unhurt.
Police and paramilitary troops immediately cordoned off the accident site, while the Turkish Red Crescent sent off medical staff and supplies to the region.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan cancelled a trip to Bosnia-Hercegovina, scheduled for Friday, and left for the crash site.
There were 234 passengers and nine staff aboard the train which was travelling from Istanbul to capital Ankara, officials said.
The cause of the accident was not immediately known.
"It is not possible to comment on the cause of the accident before a technical investigation is carried out," Muammer Turker, the head of the railway authority crisis desk, told reporters here.
The train was one of a number of new express trains which came into service last month, offering faster trips between Ankara and Istanbul following renovation on existing tracks. But critics had said the infrastructure was not suitable for such a project.
The trains travel at speeds of up to 150 kilometres (90 miles) per hour, reducing the duration of the trip of 567 kilometres (352 miles) to five hours.
Tha train was supposed to have a speed of 75 to 80 kilometres at the site of the crash, railway officials said.
But officials dismissed reports the accident might have been caused by the speed of the train.
"We estimate that the fact that the train was an accelerated one did not play a role", Turker said.
Asked whether the train might have derailed as a result of a sabotage, Turker said: "We have to take into account all possibilities. But I cannot say anything about the cause at the moment, because we do not have any findings."