All night 'rescue' North-South railway

Throughout the night of February 20, hundreds of workers were mobilized to repair and restore the North-South railway line after the accident between train SE2 and a truck left 7 people injured and dead.

» Priest Nguyen Dinh Thuc incites parishioners

Hundreds of workers and many vehicles and equipment to "rescue" the North-South railway line at night.

Immediately after the 9 undamaged train cars located behind the locomotive were "cut" to be towed to Thua Luu Station (south of Phu Loc district, Thua Thien - Hue), on the night of February 20, the railway industry mobilized a 100-ton crane from Da Nang to handle the scene.

According to the proposed plan, 6 carriages, including the tractor, engine and 4 carriages, will be “smoothed” to one side by crane to clear the North-South railway line. After completing the repair work, the carriages will be brought back to the railway for towing for repair.

However, after the terrible collision between the train and the truck, the entire 100m of railway was completely deformed.

According to the reporter's records, this railway section was bent because after the collision, the tractors and locomotives were jostled and thrown to one side. Meanwhile, the locomotives were tilted, causing serious damage to the railway line.

The bent section of track had to be completely replaced.

Although anxious to clear the route soon, because the 100-ton crane needed to move close to the scene, while the railway was bent, the "rescue" progress was slowed down.

During the night of February 20 to the morning of February 21, hundreds of workers were mobilized to the accident scene to repair the damaged rail section.

Under the lights of the "support" vehicles, the repair work took place very urgently.

Workers completely replaced the rail section bent by the impact. Hundreds of workers, some replacing wooden beams, some drilling, some fixing sleepers… worked in unison.

During the night, workers had to work urgently to clear the route soon.

Mr. Nguyen Viet Hoai, an employee of Railway Management Team No. 5 (section from Phu Bai - Lang Co) quickly wiped away sweat and said through gasps: "After the accident, we stuck to the railway for 8 hours (until about 11pm on February 20 - PV) to fix the situation. With this situation, the entire line will only be able to be cleared by noon on February 21."

Due to the large workload, the workers worked non-stop. From the afternoon of February 20 to the early morning of February 21, many people did not have time to eat a pack of instant noodles, but only drank water and rested on the spot to regain their strength to continue working.

100 workers, each with a heavy job.

“This job is like that. Normally the work is quite hard, but when there is an incident, the hardship increases many times over. We are determined to clear the line as soon as possible, so that the “lifeline” of the North-South railway can operate again,” Mr. Hoai confided.

By 8am this morning, a 100-ton crane had arrived at the scene and was “moving” the cars to one side. The railway continued to show serious damage, so workers are still working to fix it.

At an urgent meeting with relevant sectors on the evening of February 20, Mr. Vu Quang Khoi - Director of the Vietnam Railway Authority said that using a 100-ton railway crane would not be certain. Therefore, the industry needs local support in setting up a temporary road so that the road crane can reach the rescue scene.

In particular, because the locomotive is so heavy, the support of a road crane is necessary.

Try to replace the warped rail.

According to TNO