BRUSSELS — A late-night passenger train slammed into a halted freight train in eastern Belgium, killing three people and sending nine others to the hospital, authorities said on Monday (June 6).

Two cars from the passenger train derailed and tumbled onto their side when it slammed into the freight train around 11pm. Sunday at a speed of 90 km/h in this riverside hamlet on the Meuse River, RTL broadcasting said.

Nine people were hospitalised, some in critical condition, and the death toll could rise, said Mr Francis Dejon, mayor of St Georges-sur-Meuse. 27 other passengers were treated at the scene.

“The passenger train is really in a lamentable state,” Mr Dejon told a news conference, saying that the first train car was so badly damaged “it was curled back on itself”.

State broadcaster RTBF said that the dead included two passengers and the train’s driver. RTBF TV reported many of the passengers were students returning to school after the weekend.

Mr Dejon said prosecutors were on the scene and investigating the cause of the accident, which came just hours after reported lightning strikes and a signal disruption on the line.

It took rescuers three hours to free people from the wreckage of the train, which carried around 40 people when it crashed 27 kilometres south-west of the city of Liege while travelling from Mouscron to Liers.

The collision occurred near a gravel pit and an abandoned mill. When heavy morning fog lifted on Monday, witnesses could see the wheels and axle of one train car knocked loose by the impact. A large chunk of wreckage jutted up from the freight train of around 20 cars.

“The SNCB will participate closely in the investigation,” Belgium’s national railway operator said in a statement. Its services have been seriously affected by a recent wave of strikes.

A spokesman for Infrabel, a separate company that oversees Belgium’s rail infrastructure, said that installations in the area where the wreck occurred “were hit by lightning” earlier on Sunday.

“It’s an element we’re going to have to look at, but it’s premature to see this as the cause of the accident,” spokesman Frederic Sacre said.

SNCB’s Twitter account on Sunday reported “a signals disruption” on the rail line about an hour and a half before the wreck occurred, but said the problem had been solved.

The wreck halted train service between Namur and Liege, two of Belgium’s largest cities and an SNCB spokeswoman said it could take several days to clear the tracks. AP