The second serious transport accident in South Korea in just over a fortnight has left dozens of people injured – none seriously.<br /><br />An underground train in the capital Seoul crashed into another one that had stopped at a station.<br /><br />Two carriages were derailed. A metro official suggested that Friday afternoon’s accident was caused when the automatic distance control <br />system malfunctioned.<br /><br />He said the driver of the moving train applied the emergency brake after noticing a stop signal, but was unable to halt the train in time.<br /><br />South Korea is still mourning last month’s ferry disaster which left 300 people dead or missing.<br /><br />As their ship sank, many obeyed instructions to stay on board and perished.<br /><br />In Seoul an announcement telling people to stay on the train was widely ignored. <br /><br />Many passengers forced open the doors and jumped out.<br /><br />About 170 people were hurt, though of those taken to hospital most had bruises and other minor injuries.<br /><br />“I suddenly heard a “bang” sound and my head hit another three people. I was in the sixth carriage and saw people in the fifth car crawling and walking out,” said one passenger, 77-year-old Kim Tae-Su.<br /><br />“I felt an impact, but the train didn’t suddenly stop. The impact was strong so I wondered if a driver had tried to stop it. People were crying and making phone calls. It was chaos,” said a 21-year-old woman, Hur Ji-Hee.<br /><br />Most people have emerged relatively unscathed from the crash.<br /><br />But passengers talk of a blackout amid chaotic scenes in the carriages.<br /><br />Coming so soon after the ferry tragedy, for many it was obviously an extremely disturbing experience.
