Fifty-three people were killed and nearly 300 injured on Friday when a packed passenger train travelling between Cameroon's two largest cities derailed and overturned, the transportation minister said, Reuters reported. Speaking on state radio, Edgar Alain Mebe Ngo'o said the figures represented only a provisional toll from the accident, which occurred near the train station in the town of Eseka, around 120 km (75 miles) west of the capital, Yaounde. The inter-city passenger train was travelling from Yaounde to the commercial capital, Douala, when the accident occurred around 11 a.m. (1000 GMT). "There was a loud noise. I looked back and the wagons behind us left the rails and started rolling over and over. There was a lot of smoke," said a Reuters journalist travelling in a wagon near the front of the train. He said that, before its departure from Yaounde, a railway employee said additional wagons had been added to the train to accommodate extra passengers, though it was unclear if that played a role in the accident. The collapse of a bridge along the main highway between the capital and Douala had prompted increased numbers of passengers to undertake the journey by rail.
