French press review 13 July 2013

The main headline in France is the fatal derailment of a train from Paris to the central French city of Limoges, killing at least 6 people and injuring 30 others.

"Railway Catastrophe", headlines Le Figaro on its front page, the caption, illustrated by a long shot of the scene of devastation at the Bretigny-sur-Orge station 25 kms south of Paris. That’s where the regional service heading from Paris to the west-central
city of Limoges derailed.

There were 385 passengers on the train according to Aujourd’hui en France, many departing for the start of their summer holidays ahead of Bastille Day on Sunday. The Parisian paper spoke to survivors in the immediate aftermath of the accident. Many were still overwhelmed by emotions according to the popular daily, as they recalled dramatic scenes of panic and injured passengers rushed to safety.

One told Aujourd’hui en France that they were women and children screaming as they remained trapped in overturned carriages, while others recalled seeing dazed survivors, some in blood-stained clothing, standing near mangled train wagons and the crushed remains of a station platform. Aujourd’hui en France also reports that pickpockets rushed to the scene hoping to loot belongings abandoned by some of the victims, but were pushed back by the police.

All of today’s national dailies commended the work of police and rescue teams working throughout the night, checking overturned carriages to see if any passengers were still trapped inside and if there were more bodies to be recovered.

Libération struggles to come to terms with the train crash, France’s worst rail disaster since a train crash at the Parisian Gare de Lyon station of Lyon in 1988 that killed 56 people. and another in Melun east of Paris in 1991 which left 16 others dead.

According to the paper, four wagons derailed, three of them overturned. It reports that Guillaume Pépy, the head of the SNCF rail service, clearly shaken by the scale of the destruction, had no immediate explanation of what may have happened, preferring to wait until full investigations are carried out by the SNCF, judicial authorities and France's safety agency, the BEA, according to Libération.