by Nicolas Cheviron
PAMUKOVA, Turkey, July 23 (AFP) - The Turkish government came under blistering fire from experts and civic groups Friday for launching a fast train service on decade-old tracks, after 36 people perished in one of the country's worst rail disasters.
Playing down accusations that safety requirements were neglected, the transport minister said the driver of the train had exceeded the speed limit, but refrained from directly blaming him for the tragedy.
A new train linking Istanbul to Ankara derailed Thursday evening near the northwestern town of Pamukova, its five carriages overturning and crashing into each other.
Transport Minister Binali Yildirim said the train was traveling at a speed of 118 kilometers (71 miles) per hour, whereas the speed limit in the area of the crash was 80 kilometers per hour.
"I do not say speeding was the cause... It is wrong to link accidents only to speeding," he said, adding that a definite explanation could be given only after the completion of technical investigations in 15 days.
Officials had earlier claimed the train was not speeding.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan inaugurated the express link on June 4 amid much fanfare despite warnings that the country's decrepit tracks, untouched since the 1950s, would not withstand high-speed cars.
"I can say with a clear conscience that all precautions had been taken," Yildirim told reporters.
Erdogan angrily rejected calls for heads to roll.
"More than 10 accidents have occurred on the same route since the 1950s but never was a government asked to take such actions," he said.
Officials put the death toll at 36 after giving contradictory figures of up to 139 dead overnight. Eighty-one other people were injured.
"It was suddenly all dust and smoke and we overturned. It was like an earthquake," Hatice Er, a passenger on the train, said from her wheelchair in Pamukova hospital.
"I only remember the cries. It was terrible. We were stuck underneath (another carriage). We broke the windows and got out," Another survivor, Fatih Selcuk, recalled.
Judicial authorities detained the official in charge of the train and its two drivers for questioning.
A court was to decide later whether to release or formally arrest the tree men, a lawyer for the drivers said.
The press unanimously blasted the accident as a "murder" as experts charged that the government had ignored warnings over flaws in the upgraded train project.
The so-called "accelerated" train travels at speeds of up to 150 kilometres (90 miles) per hour, reducing the duration of the 567-kilometre (340-mile) trip from Istanbul to Ankara from eight to five hours.
"An accelerated massacre," the Sabah daily said angrily, while the Milliyet daily declared: "They died for the sake of a show-off."
The lawyer for the two drivers said they were told that the speed limit in the area of the accident was as high as 130 kilometers per hour.
"They say they were running on a lower speed than that ... They also said they had earlier warned their superiors that the tracks were inadequate for the fast train," Ismail Gurses told NTV television.
A professor from Istanbul's Yildiz Technical University, who spearheaded opposition to the upgraded train project, said it was impossible for the current rails to bear such high speeds.
"I had told them (railway authorities) that improvements that had been made are inadequate for the accelerated train...Our tracks are hardly suitable for slow trains," Aydin Erel told reporters.
Yildirm, however, said the service would resume once the tracks were repaired. A final decision on whether to suspend the project would be made after the evaluation of technical reports on the accident.
As officials and experts wrangled over the causes of the tragedy, weeping relatives searched morgues for loved ones, faced with the gruesome task of identifying sometimes badly mutilated bodies.
In an embarrassment for Erdogan, a wailing woman who lost her spouse in the accident yelled at him as he visited injured people in a hospital in Pamukova.
"Mr. prime minister, please hear my voice. This train was bad! I lost my husband," she cried.
Police sealed off the site of the crash as experts searched for clues to determine the cause of the accident.
Meanwhile French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder both sent messages of condolence to Turkish leaders, conveying their sympathy to families of the victims.