One person was killed and at least 83 were injured when a passenger train collided head-on with a goods train carrying granite in Zimbabwe's capital Harare early Thursday, state radio reported, according to dpa. At least 23 people were seriously injured. The injured were being treated at Harare's main Parirenyatwa Hospital. Signals on the state-run National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) were not working properly and the driver of the passenger train had been given the green light to proceed shortly before the collision, a railway official told the radio. State television showed pictures of the twisted wreckage of one of the engines surrounded by crowds of people. Police and soldiers were shown carrying the injured away on stretchers and also ferrying a coffin. It was not immediately clear how many people were travelling on the passenger train, which had been travelling from the densely- populated southwestern suburb of Mufakose. Commuter trains - dubbed "freedom trains" by President Robert Mugabe's government - running between Harare's working-class suburbs and the city centre have been in high demand due a transport crisis following the withdrawal of private buses from routes in protest at the governments slashing of fares. Trains are now by far the cheapest mode of public transport in Zimbabwe. The train accident comes while memories are still fresh of an accident that killed 35 people in March this year when a goods train collided with a bus in Harare's low-income Dzivaresekwa suburb. The main Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) said the government should show seriousness in dealing with the problem of frequent train accidents. "The freedom trains have become death trains and this is unacceptable to the citizens of Zimbabwe," ZCTU Secretary General Wellington Chibebe said in a statement Thursday. "We believe these accidents can be avoided by revamping the railway system as currently there is no system to talk of," he said.
