«Woman was carried away by the current»: Vorkuta-Novorossiysk train passenger tells about the crash

“The toilets didn’t work, there was no water”

Most of the passengers on the Vorkuta-Novorossiysk train that derailed did not give up their vacation and continued the journey.

Photo: Still from video

Mikhail, who is now heading south, told how passengers helped each other and how they saved the woman.

Inta resident Mikhail was going on vacation on the Vorkuta-Novorossiysk train. He was lucky — his place was in the surviving first carriages.

“Everything happened unexpectedly,” Mikhail began. – We were in the first carriages. We felt the braking, but didn’t pay much attention to it. After some time, a woman came to our carriage and asked for help. At that time, we did not even suspect that such a terrible accident had happened. Only when we went outside did we see that part of the train had gone off the rails.

According to the interlocutor, passengers from the surviving carriages rushed to help the victims: “We broke the glass of the windows from where we were getting people out. Naturally, everything was abandoned at first. They went for things later. I note that there was no particular panic, the people organized themselves, everyone helped each other.”

Then people moved to those carriages that survived: “We sat in the carriages until 5:17 in the morning. The toilets didn't work and there was no water. But people waited patiently. Someone helped the wounded.”

– Another woman, who was carried away by the current, was saved by the passengers themselves. She was found on the bank of a stream. The rescuers arrived in about an hour and a half,” adds Mikhail. – Basically, the passengers themselves took part in saving people.

– It seemed to me that the majority moved on. Understand, it’s difficult for us to get to the south from the north. People prefer to travel for 3 days by train than to fly by plane, not because the air ticket is more expensive, sometimes you can find cheaper ones. But personally, residents of Inta have to get to the nearest airport by train, since we don’t have an airport in our city. But three days on the road is not so hard. You can buy more food along the way. It would be nice if showers were provided in carriages over such long distances. And the fact that the trains are old is nothing to worry about. My personal opinion is that old coupe cars are better than new ones, they are wider.