2024-08-26 22:33:34
BDZ appointed a commission to investigate the cause of the fire on the train on the Varna – Plovdiv line, which occurred last night.
The problems in BDZ from the last months became the reason for replacing the transport minister Georgi Gvozdeikov. According to Prime Minister Glavchev, the reshuffle in the ministry was also undertaken because of the last two incidents – the one with the passengers who were pushing a broken-down train last Friday and the locomotive of the Varna – Plovdiv high-speed train that caught fire last night.
The fire started from the locomotive of the train 4 kilometers from Chirpan. One driver was slightly gassed, fortunately no passengers were injured. BDZ appointed a commission to investigate the cause of the fire.
“Shortly after Varna, the train started to be delayed, at first 40 minutes, but in the end it reached an hour,” Eli Atanasova, a passenger on the train, told BNT.
Shortly before Chirpan, the passengers felt a suffocating smell.
“Everything was moving normally, but we felt smoke. We looked out the window. We saw that the machine was on fire, the locomotive was on fire,” added Valentin Angelov, another passenger.
The train stopped near Chirpan shortly before 11 p.m. 4 teams of the fire department, police and ambulance came to the scene. They provided medical assistance to one of the drivers, who was gassed and felt sick.
“Last night at half past 1 we found out that he was discharged from the Stara Zagorsk hospital and is already in Varna for home treatment,” added Stoyan Zlatev, Deputy Head of “Operation” at the Locomotive Depot – Plovdiv.
About 70 people were traveling in the train, none of them were injured. However, many people did not know what to do when they had to get off the train.
“It was impossible to get off the train, you had to jump. They said it was a kilometer to the station, but the station was on the side where the locomotive was burning, and we went in the opposite direction to go around in nowhere, in the bare field. There were weeds , dried grass up to my waist, there was no one to give us information about what happens from here on,” commented Eli Atanasova, a passenger.
Later, buses arrived at the scene and took the passengers away. And the wrecked machine was towed to the depot in Plovdiv, where the causes that led to the accident will be looked for.
“The fire we saw was in the middle part of the locomotive, there is a high-voltage transformer there, we still cannot give a definite answer to the cause, just an unfortunate accident,” said Stoyan Zlatev, Deputy Head of “Operation” at the Locomotive Depot – Plovdiv. .
The carriages of the train were not affected by the fire and are back in service as of today.