Train collision in Indonesia kills seven as rescuers work to reach survivors

Indonesian rescuers work at the site where a passenger train pierced through the rear carriage of a commuter train in Bekasi, West Java, early on Tuesday. Photograph: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty ImagesView image in fullscreenIndonesian rescuers work at the site where a passenger train pierced through the rear carriage of a commuter train in Bekasi, West Java, early on Tuesday. Photograph: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty ImagesIndonesiaTrain collision in Indonesia kills seven as rescuers work to reach survivorsEfforts continue to free two trapped passengers in wreckage after long-distance train collides with commuter train outside Jakarta, injuring 81Agence France-Presse in JakartaMon 27 Apr 2026 21.44 EDTSharePrefer the Guardian on GoogleRescuers were racing to reach survivors on Tuesday morning outside the Indonesian capital of Jakarta after two trains collided overnight, killing at least seven people and injuring scores.Rescuers were working to get to two people still trapped alive in the wreckage, a spokesperson for the state-owned KAI rail company told local television in the early hours.Anna Purba put the death toll at seven with 81 injured.One survivor told of the moments after a long-distance train slammed into the stationary commuter train she was in, trapping people inside mangled carriages.“I thought I was going to die,” Sausan Sarifah, 29, said from her bed at the RSUD Bekasi hospital, where she was admitted with a broken arm and a deep cut to one thigh.View image in fullscreenRescuers work to evacuate trapped passengers from the wreckage after the collision. Photograph: Mast Irham/EPAShe was on her way home from work, she said, when her train stopped at the Bekasi Timur station about 25km (15 miles) from Jakarta.“It all happened so fast, in a split second,” Sausan said.“There were two announcements from the commuter train. Everyone was ready to get off, and then suddenly there was the sound of the locomotive, really loud,” she said.“There was no time to get out, and everyone ended up piled up inside the train, crushed on top of one another. I don’t know how the person underneath me is doing.”View image in fullscreenThe crash at Bekasi Timur station early on Tuesday killed at least seven people and injured 81. Photograph: Willy Kurniawan/ReutersHead-on train collision near Copenhagen leaves five critically injuredRead moreShe said she had feared suffocating to death in the human pile-up, and worried that some pinned underneath did not survive.“Thank God I was on top, so I could be evacuated quickly,” Sausan said.According to Franoto Wibowo, a spokesperson for rail operator KAI, a taxi appeared to have clipped the commuter train on a level crossing, causing it to come to a standstill on the tracks, where it was hit.At the station, chaotic scenes unfolded in the aftermath of the crash, with rescue workers shouting for oxygen tanks as ambulances stood by in a snaking queue, lights flashing.View image in fullscreenMedical staff and rescue workers prepare on a platform next to the collision site at Bekasi Timur station outside Jakarta. Photograph: Aditya Irawan/AFP/Getty ImagesAn AFP reporter at the scene witnessed people being carried out of the wreckage on gurneys and loaded into waiting ambulances as hundreds of bystanders looked on, some seemingly in shock.As rescuers worked to free many more trapped in the crushed train carriages, an Indonesian deputy house speaker, Sufmi Dasco Ahmad, said at the scene that the toll could continue…

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