AUSTRALIA: A judicial inquiry has begun into yesterday's train derailment near Waterfall, south of Sydney, which left nine people dead and 41 injured.
The New South Wales (NSW) Transport Minister, Mr Carl Scully, announced that former Supreme Court judge Mr Peter McInerney would head the inquiry. Mr McInerney previously headed the inquiry into the December 1999 train crash in Glenbrook, west of Sydney, in which seven people were killed.
The derailment occurred at around 7.30 a.m., 4 km south of Waterfall station. The train was just over an hour into its journey from Sydney to Port Kembla. The driver was killed and it appears the eight passengers to have died were in the first two carriages of the four-carriage, double-decker Tangara commuter train.
Investigators say the train's black-box recorder appears to be undamaged.
Ms Nonee Walsh, a reporter for the Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC), was travelling home on the train.
"I may have been dozing but just south of Waterfall, the train seemed to just suddenly speed up to the point that the people in my carriage kind of looked up in alarm," she told ABC television from a hospital bed. "I've never been on a Tangara going that fast."