by Nicolas Cheviron
GEBZE, Turkey, Aug 12 (AFP) - The Turkish government faced new accusations over the country's poor railway system Thursday after eight people were killed and 88 injured in a train collision, the second major rail tragedy in the country in three weeks.
The two trains crashed head-on near the town of Gebze, southeast of Istanbul, after one ran a red light, officials said.
But experts were quick to blame the accident on a possible error in the decade-old signalization system which authorities allegedly neglected and on technical failures.
The government had already come under fire after a newly-inaugurated express train derailed in the same region in the northwest, killing 37 people and leaving some 80 others injured, on July 22.
The new service was launched despite warnings that the country's aging tracks would not withstand high speeds.
"Are you going to continue sitting in those armchairs of yours?" the Radikal newspaper said Thursday in an angry appeal to officials on its front-page.
"The government did not hear the warnings," Cumhuriyet trumpeted, while Aksam described the crash as a "painful indication of the collapse of the railway system."
Officials insisted that the signalization system was functioning properly, but one of the train drivers who survived the crash cast doubt on the claim.
Interviewed in hospital, with both arms broken, Hasan Yucedag told Anatolia news agency the signal had been green as his train approached.
"But suddenly the signal changed to red. The other train was at a stop. I don't know how it happened. The light turned red. I don't remember anything after that," he said.
Some experts also suggested that the trains were not equipped with an automatic braking system which would have stopped the train in case of a driver's mistake.
Others said the two trains were running on the same track in violation of international regulations because a second track was closed for maintainance.
"If an accident happens at a point where a double track has been reduced to a single one, this is definitely an operational mistake," Professor Zerrin Bayrakdar, an expert on transport systems from the Yildiz Technical University in Istanbul, told Radikal.
Transport Minister Binali Yildirim, however, rejected the criticism.
"I don't think I will resign. I don't see why I should resign," he said late Wednesday.
The two trains crashed head-on, hurling one carriage off the tracks.
Another front carriage smashed into the engine and remained partly buried in it. Most victims were in the front of the trains.
The scene was one of devastation, with blood-soaked survivors wandering among the mangled bodies and tangled train wreckage.
Torn shoes and pools of blood littered the track.
"There was a loud bang and then hell broke loose... Together with my daughter, I managed to find an opening and got out with a broken leg," a passenger with a bloodied face told NTV television from his hospital bed.
Another survivor said all passengers in the first carriage of the train he was travelling in were hurled into the air by the collision.
Overnight, rescuers labored through the wreckage, using electric saws and axes to cut through the sides of the wagons to free passengers.
Dozens of ambulances and hundreds of rescue workers and soldiers were rushed to the site, where many passengers had been reported trapped.
One of the trains was en route from Ankara to Istanbul with 153 passengers and nine staff on board.
The other one was heading from Istanbul to the city of Adapazari, also in the northwest. The number of passengers at the time of the crash was not known because it was a local commuter train.
Earlier this month, legislators from the governing Justice and Development Party blocked an opposition move to censure the transport minister over the July 22 accident.