by Nicolas Cheviron
GEBZE, Turkey, Aug 12 (AFP) - At least six people were killed and 85 injured when two trains collided head-on near Istanbul in northwestern Turkey on Wednesday, according to a crisis cell set up by the prime minister`s office to deal with the tragedy.
Of those injured, 27 remained in hospital, the Anatolia news agency quoted the crisis cell as saying, following the second major rail accident in Turkey in three weeks.
The two trains collided in the province of Kocaeli, southeast of Istanbul, after one of them apparently passed a red light, officials said.
"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."
During the night, rescuers were still trying to cut through the sides of the wagons to free victims.
One blood-bespattered passenger explained from his hospital bed how all the passengers of the first carriage of the train he was on were hurled into the air at the moment of impact.
"It was horrible, God be praised I am still alive," the 50-year-old survivor told NTV television.
The accident came 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 because one of the trains ran a stop signal.
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, hurling a 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. Most of the victims were in the front of the trains.
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, visibly in shock.
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.