The Queronque rail accident was a head-on train collision that happened on February 17, 1986, on the line between

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile (), is the capital and largest city of Chile and one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is located in the country's central valley and is the center of the Santiago Metropolitan Regi ...

and

Valparaíso Valparaíso () is a major city, Communes of Chile, commune, Port, seaport, and naval base facility in the Valparaíso Region of Chile. Valparaíso was originally named after Valparaíso de Arriba, in Castilla–La Mancha, Castile-La Mancha, Spain ...

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

. It is the worst in Chilean history, killing at least 58 people.

Collision

The accident happened in the

Marga Marga Province Marga Marga Province () is one of the eight Provinces of Chile, provinces in the central Chilean Regions of Chile, region of Valparaíso Region, Valparaíso (V). Its capital is the city of Quilpué. History The province was created by Law 20,368 o ...

Valparaíso Region The Valparaíso Region (, ) is one of Chile's 16 Regions of Chile, first order administrative divisions.Valparaíso Region, 2006 With the country's second-highest population of 1,790,219 , and fourth-smallest area of , the region is Chile's sec ...

, between

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and

Limache Limache is a town and commune in Marga Marga Province, Valparaíso Region, Chile. It is the only Chilean commune with two urban areas: San Francisco de Limache on the north side of the Pelumpén stream, and Limache Viejo on the south. Limache i ...

stations on a sharp curve. Both of the trains involved were three-carriage electric AES units and were carrying around a thousand people in total. The accident happened at 19:45 when the 17:30 from Los Andes to Valparaiso collided head on with a train travelling from Valparaiso to Mapocho Station in Santiago. The front carriages embedded themselves in each other for a distance of five metres, killing those at the front of both trains.Queronque: 20 años después
/ref>

Cause

Repair work to a bridge damaged in an explosive attack by the FPMRReportajes 24 Horas
/ref> six months previously meant that a single line was used for trains travelling in both directions.http://www.elbombero.cl/foro/showthread.php?p=184913 A 24 Años de la Tragedia de Queronque In addition, the signalling on the line dated from 1928 and had developed a fault a few days before the accident. But the accident was primarily blamed on the stationmaster at Limache, who should have held the train from Los Andes until the train from Valparaiso had passed.http://ferrocarrillimache.blogspot.com/2009/06/tragedia-de-queronque.html Tragedia de Queronque Theft of telephone cabling meant that the phone link between stations was not working, and it was over an hour before rescue teams arrived at the scene of the accident. The rescue efforts continued until 11:30 the following morning; an emergency hospital room was set up on the platform at Limache station; its speakers were used to ask for blood donors to come forward.

Death toll

The official figures state that 58 people were killed and 510 injured, 111 of them seriously. However, some sources state the fatality figure to be much higher, 110 and a recent video documentary puts it at 200.
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Response

Dictator

Augusto Pinochet Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean military officer and politician who was the dictator of Military dictatorship of Chile, Chile from 1973 to 1990. From 1973 to 1981, he was the leader ...

visited the injured in hospital shortly after the incident and pledged compensation to those affected similar to that in place for road accident victims. As a result of the tragedy, the train service between Santiago and Valparaiso was suspended, only resuming in 1992 with the installation of radio communications in the trains. The line is now operated by

MERVAL The S&P MERVAL Index (''MERcado de VALores'', ) is the most important index of the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange. It is a price-weighted index, calculated as the market value of a portfolio of stocks selected based on their market share, number of ...

, the Valparaiso region metro system.

References

External links

Youtube: Accidente Ferroviario Queronque 1986
(in Spanish)
Youtube: Reportaje accidente de Queronque
(in Spanish) {{coord, 32, 59, 14, S, 71, 20, 39, W, region:CL-VS_type:landmark_source:kolossus-dewiki, display=title Railway accidents in 1986 Train collisions in Chile History of Valparaíso Region February 1986 in South America 1986 disasters in Chile