WARSAW // Two trains have collided head-on in southern Poland, killing 15 people and injuring 56 - the country's worst train disaster in more than 20 years.
President Bronislaw Komorowski said yesterday when rescue efforts are over he would announce a period of national mourning.
Several of the passengers in Saturday's were foreigners, including from Ukraine, Spain and France, but none of them were among the dead or seriously injured, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said.
"This is our most tragic train disaster in many, many years," he said.
An unnamed passenger interviewed on TVN24 said he felt the force of the collision.
"I hit the person in front of me. The lights went out. Everything flew," he said. "We flew over the compartment like bags. We could hear screams. We prayed."
Rescue workers brought in heavy equipment yesterday to try free a body from the mangled wreckage. The injured are being treated in several local hospitals. A doctor in one, Szymon Nowak, said many of the injured were in a serious condition.
"It's a very, very sad day and night in the history of Polish railways and for all of us," Mr Tusk said.
The accident in the southern town of Szczekociny comes less than three months before millions of football fans will start criss-crossing the country - many by train - to watch football matches at Euro 2012, co-hosted with Ukraine.
Prosecutors have opened an investigation into how one of the trains ended up on the wrong track, but officials said it was too soon to draw any conclusions.
One train was travelling from the eastern city of Przemysl to Warsaw in the north, while the other - on the wrong track - was heading south from Warsaw to Kraków. Maintenance work was being done on the tracks before the accident happened, officials said.
President Komorowski visited the crash site yesterday, as well as hospitals where the injured were being treated.
"The scale of this phenomenon is so large that there should be nationwide mourning," he said.
The tragedy was the worst involving trains since 1990, when 16 people were killed in a collision between two trains in the Warsaw suburb of Ursus.
Poland's deadliest train disaster was in 1980, when 65 people died when a freight train collided with a passenger train near Otloczyn.
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A new relationship with the old country
Treaty of Friendship between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United Arab Emirates
The United kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United Arab Emirates; Considering that the United Arab Emirates has assumed full responsibility as a sovereign and independent State; Determined that the long-standing and traditional relations of close friendship and cooperation between their peoples shall continue; Desiring to give expression to this intention in the form of a Treaty Friendship; Have agreed as follows:
ARTICLE 1 The relations between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United Arab Emirates shall be governed by a spirit of close friendship. In recognition of this, the Contracting Parties, conscious of their common interest in the peace and stability of the region, shall: (a) consult together on matters of mutual concern in time of need; (b) settle all their disputes by peaceful means in conformity with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations.
ARTICLE 2 The Contracting Parties shall encourage education, scientific and cultural cooperation between the two States in accordance with arrangements to be agreed. Such arrangements shall cover among other things: (a) the promotion of mutual understanding of their respective cultures, civilisations and languages, the promotion of contacts among professional bodies, universities and cultural institutions; (c) the encouragement of technical, scientific and cultural exchanges.
ARTICLE 3 The Contracting Parties shall maintain the close relationship already existing between them in the field of trade and commerce. Representatives of the Contracting Parties shall meet from time to time to consider means by which such relations can be further developed and strengthened, including the possibility of concluding treaties or agreements on matters of mutual concern.
ARTICLE 4 This Treaty shall enter into force on today’s date and shall remain in force for a period of ten years. Unless twelve months before the expiry of the said period of ten years either Contracting Party shall have given notice to the other of its intention to terminate the Treaty, this Treaty shall remain in force thereafter until the expiry of twelve months from the date on which notice of such intention is given.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF the undersigned have signed this Treaty.
DONE in duplicate at Dubai the second day of December 1971AD, corresponding to the fifteenth day of Shawwal 1391H, in the English and Arabic languages, both texts being equally authoritative.
Signed
Geoffrey Arthur Sheikh Zayed
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