by Nicolas Cheviron
GEBZE, Turkey, Aug 11 (AFP) - At least four people were killed and around 70 injured when two trains slammed into each other on Wednesday near Istanbul, officials said, in the second major rail accident in Turkey in three weeks.
"The trains are still stuck together, that`s why we still don`t know the exact number of injured and dead," Turkish Transport Minister Binali Yildirim said.
"The search is continuing."
Of the 70 or so injured, 22 are still in hospital, the minister said.
As night fell, rescuers were still trying to cut through the sides of the wagons to free victims.
The accident comes just three weeks after 37 people were killed and some 80 injured when a newly-inaugurated express train derailed in the same region.
The incident brought Turkey`s decrepit railway system under the spotlight, with widespread calls that Yildirim quit.
"I don`t think I will resign. I don`t see why I should resign," the minister said at the time.
A spokesman for the state-run railway authority, Mehmet Ayci, said it appeared Wednesday`s crash occurred on because one of the trains ran a stop signal.
He told AFP four people died, revising downwards an earlier death toll of five.
Wednesday`s accident happened on a stretch of line running parallel to a road on one side and to the Sea of Marmara on the other, a short distance away from Gebze, some 20 minutes out of Istanbul.
Hundreds of rescuers, police, soldiers and onlookers gathered along the road above the track, while dozens of people in small boats watched from the sea.
Dozens of ambulances and hundreds of rescuers and soldiers were sent to the site, where scores of people were initially reported trapped.
The two trains crashed head-on, tumbling the carriage of one of the trains from the tracks.
The front carriage from the second train smashed into the engine and remained partly buried in it. The other carriages remained on the rails.
Rescue workers used electric saws and axes to get into one of the badly damaged carriage.
"We found ourselves in a cloud of dust. Then I saw people running and yelling... We managed to pull out several people who were trapped," a young man, who was aboard the train, told NTV television.
"I saw several people with mutilated legs and arms," he added.
One of the trains was en route from Ankara to Istanbul with 153 passengers and nine staff on board, Anatolia news agency reported.
The other train was heading from Istanbul to the city of Adapazari, also in the northwest, with eight carriages but the number of passengers was not immediately known.
"The situation is under control... Almost all injured passengers have been taken to hospitals," Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu told reporters as he visited the crash site.
The Turkish government came under fire following the July 22 derailment accident, facing accusations that it launched a new express service despite warnings from experts that the country`s aging tracks would not withstand high speed trains.
Earlier this month, legislators from the governing Justice and Development Party blocked an opposition move to censure Yildirim over the accident.